29 Aug 2009
A train with some 1,000 passengers on board has derailed in Cameroon's economic capital of Yaounde, leaving at least five people dead and 275 others wounded.

The incident came when the train, having set off from the northern town of Ngaoundere, went off its tracks early on Saturday.

Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary put the casualties at five dead and 275 injured, but noted the death toll could increase as some of the wagons had crashed into ravines.

Bakary said that the cause of the accident was not yet known, adding that a rescue operation was searching for survivors or bodies.

A day earlier, flames engulfed a train carrying petroleum products in Yaounde after the 30-car freight train derailed.

The train's wagons which were carrying diesel burned in the blaze, which killed one person and badly injured another. It took firefighters four hours to stop the fire.

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