Passengers have described the horror and panic after a train carriage burst into flames while travelling along the southwestern coast of Italy.
An Italian passenger train travelling on the Naples-Sorrento line caught fire on Monday 21 July after an apparent air conditioning failure.
The fire broke out at around 1.20pm near the Villa Regina station between Torre Annuziata and Pompeii, causing the train, which was carrying approximately 200 passengers, to come to a complete standstill for hours.
Around 15 passengers were injured, local reports state, with an investigation now underway by the local prosecutor’s office.
A video on social media shows smoke billowing out of the top of one carriage, while flames also erupted. People can be seen standing on the side of the tracks with large suitcases, while others grab hold of fire extinguishers, trying to battle the fire.
Jonny Glen, 35, was on the train with his partner and parents at the time, while in Italy on a week’s holiday heading to Sorrento from Napoli. He told The Independent that the entire ordeal was “traumatic” and said that help was very limited from police or crew throughout.
He recalled how “everyone was cramming onto this train, it was like coming back from a concert”.
Around half an hour into the train journey, Mr Glen said that the train came to a stop in the middle of the track before resuming its journey. Five minutes later, his father saw sparks coming out of the window.
Mr Glen continued: “We saw smoke coming down the ceiling. It sounded like fireworks. The roof started spitting out flames, and then something fell down from the roof of the carriage on fire, right through the ceiling, and missed my mum and my girlfriend by a matter of inches.”
It was later revealed that the flames ignited from the air conditioning motor on the roof of one carriage. The fire quickly spread and filled the inside with smoke.
While his mother clawed his girlfriend towards her, Mr Glen and his dad could do nothing but watch as they were so crammed into the train and could not move from where they were standing.
As people started to move away from the fire, Mr Glen said he was crushed by other passengers.
“At this point, we are maybe three or four feet away from the flames, and the smoke engulfs the carriage. As you imagine, everyone’s panicking. We couldn’t really breathe.
“The train continued for what felt like five minutes without stopping. Everyone’s pressing emergency leavers, trying to smash windows. But there was no stopping the train.”
Mr Glen said that no smoke alarms were going off while the fumes filled the carriage.
“There were people screaming, saying, ‘We’re going to die’. The place was packed with tourists as well as local commuters, and everyone was in hysterics,” he added.
Eventually, one man started to smash the window of the train to let the smoke escape the carriage, after which the train then ground to a halt.
Four of the passengers pried the doors open, allowing everyone inside to evacuate the carriage. Mr Glen said that not a single member of staff for EAV was in sight.
While escaping the train, some passengers sustained injuries from the drop to the tracks, while others received burns from the flames, and some experienced issues from smoke inhalation.
Around 15 passengers were injured, local reports state, with an investigation now underway by the local prosecutor’s office.
In the absence of staff, Mr Glen and others helped passengers disembark then retrieve their luggage, while two others tried to tackle the fire.
He said that only after passengers had deboarded, one staff member came down the tracks to assist.
The passengers were then instructed to walk in 34C heat to a station around 500m down the tracks, where they waited two and a half hours for police to arrive.
Mr Glen said: “So eventually water [for the passengers] came out. About two and a half hours later, the police were standing outside, and a guy from New Zealand, myself and one other guy just started handing out the water because the police were doing nothing. They weren’t interested.”
After boarding a minibus to another station, Mr Glen said he and the other passengers were told they could board another train to their final destination, Sorrento.
Mr Glen described this as a “slap in the face” after what they had just experienced on another EAV train. “We eventually had to pay 100 euros to get a taxi from whatever this train station was to Sorrento,” he said.
Mr Glen and his family are currently seeking compensation from EAV, but have yet to hear a response.
The Torre Annunziata Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the case and ordered the seizure of the two electric trains involved to determine the cause of the fire.
EAV, the company that operates the service, also established its own internal commission of inquiry.
While EAV did not confirm that a fire broke out on the train, it did give service updates throughout the day to say that there had been a “breakdown” on the train, interrupting rail traffic, with replacement buses operating.
By 6.20pm, the train operator said that services had been restored after “technical problems had been resolved”.
The Independent has contacted EAV, the Carabinieri, the Torre Annunziata Police Station, and the Torre Annunziata Public Prosecutor’s Office for comment.
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