At least 10 seriously injured in incident at Pioltello-Limito station on outskirts of the city

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

At least three people have been killed and 12 seriously injured after a packed commuter train derailed near Milan in northern Italy.



Hours after the crash, rescuers continued to search for passengers inside the wreckage. One of the carriages was lying across the track, bent almost at a right angle.

About 100 other people sustained light injuries, Cristina Corbetta, an official with the regional emergency services in Milan, told Sky TG24.

She said the incident had happened at around 7am (6am GMT) near Segrate in Milan’s north-eastern suburbs. The cause was not immediately clear.

Many of the passengers were travelling to work in Italy’s economic capital, or were students.

The injured were evacuated on stretchers, while those with serious injuries received first aid in a field near the accident.



Journalists watched from a field about 100 metres from the site. Three helicopters arrived to rush the injured to hospital while another patrolled the area.

One of the injured, seen with ripped clothes, covered with a thermal blanket and wearing an oxygen mask, was evacuated by helicopter.

The first images released by the fire service showed a passenger trapped in their seat, surrounded by bits of the collapsed ceiling, and part of the wall twisted by the shock.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Firefighters inside a derailed carriage. Photograph: Handout/Reuters

One woman told the newspaper La Repubblica that her daughter had called her to say: “Mummy, help, the train is derailing” as the accident happened. Since then, the woman said, there had been no reply on her daughter’s telephone.



Italian media quoted witnesses as saying the train had begun to shake heavily as if it were travelling over rocks. Then it braked suddenly and derailed.

Milan prosecutors have opened a probe into the accident, and investigators have begun questioning the driver, Italian media said.

The regional train had left the town of Cremona at 5.32am and was scheduled to arrive in Milan at 724am.

The train belonged to the Lombardy regional rail company Trenord, which is owned in equal parts by the public company Trenitalia and Ferrovie Nord Milano. Trenord informed passengers at 8am of the interruption to services due to a “technical problem”, sparking sharp criticism on social media.

It was the latest incident involving Italy’s ageing rail system. In 2016, 23 people died when two trains collided on a single track in an olive grove in the south-eastern region of Puglia. In 2009, 32 people were killed when a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded in Viareggio, in the central Tuscany region.