Linden railway accident
In the Linden railway accident on Sunday, June 22nd, 1969, at around 8:05 a.m., a Belgian State Railroad (SNCB) freight car that had caught fire and was loaded with ammunition for the German armed forces exploded at Hannover-Linden station . The explosion killed four railway officials and eight firefighters.
Starting position
The freight train Dg 57767 carried four freight cars , each loaded with 216 shells of 17.5 cm caliber for the M107 self-propelled gun . The freight wagon that later caused the railway accident belonged to the Belgian State Railways (SNCB).
the accident
At around 8 a.m., a marshals on the open track noticed that the train was passing by that a car was spraying sparks. He suspected a stuck brake . The observation was confirmed by other agencies that the train passed; the train was stopped at Hannover-Linden station. The floor of the car was already on fire here. At the time, nobody there knew that the train's wagons were loaded with dangerous goods . An employee of the freight depot got fire extinguishers , the fire department was alerted, another replaced the clutch behind the burning car and let the train prefer something a third went to the train conductor to locomotive to the bills of lading to see. When they saw what the burning car had loaded, they immediately informed the dispatcher via an intercom . This immediately warned all employees via the station's loudspeaker system . A federal railroad official ran towards the just arriving fire engine 4 of the Hanover fire brigade to warn him. At that moment the grenades exploded ; this created a crater 15 meters in diameter.
The fire engines stood parallel to the railway line ; the explosion hit them all over their side. Only one vehicle was partially covered by a warehouse.
consequences
Twelve people died and another thirty were injured, some seriously. In addition to the operations supervisor, three other railway officials and eight of the ten firefighters on the fire engine died . One firefighter survived because the deployment took place during the shift change and he changed his shoes for firefighter boots behind a vehicle; another survived because he happened to stoop in the vehicle.
The fire engines were riddled with iron parts, gravel and shrapnel, and the command vehicle was thrown through the air. The tracks and the overhead line were badly damaged. A car transport train that was parked in the train station partially overturned. A total of two freight wagons were completely destroyed, 71 damaged in part. Fires broke out on vehicles and warehouses in the area. Splinters were found three kilometers away and windows were destroyed. The property damage amounted to about forty million German marks .
The investigation into the accident did not come to a clear conclusion as to what triggered the fire - also because the remains of the freight wagon were extremely damaged. A hot runner could be excluded. Most likely, the brake was not released.
As a result of the accident, it was prescribed on May 1, 1970 for railway wagons transporting goods with a mass explosion hazard that they had to be equipped with roller axle bearings and protective plates on the wagon floor to prevent possible sparks . Furthermore, only small groups of ammunition wagons may be carried and - if the braking hundredths are sufficient - the wagons should be placed on the train without braking . Internationally, only roller axle bearings and spark guards were prescribed for ammunition wagons. In addition, a special warning sign has been introduced, which, like the regulation on wagons traveling without brakes, is no longer included in international regulations.
literature
- Hans-Joachim Ritzau, Jürgen Höstel: The disaster scenes of the present (= railway accidents in Germany , Volume 2). Pürgen 1983, ISBN 3-921304-50-4 , p. 150 f.
- Disasters - Hanover: Composition b . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1969, p. 67 f . ( online ).
- Wolfgang Löhde: It wasn't sabotage . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1970.
Web links
- Contribution. (PDF; 95 kB) in the Dangerous Goods Officer magazine (February 2005)
- Simon Benne: On a Sunday 50 years ago: When death came to Linden. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung . June 16, 2019, accessed June 16, 2019 .
- 50 years ago: Twelve dead in explosion in Linden at ndr.de on June 22, 2019
Footnotes
Coordinates: 52 ° 21 ′ 14.6 " N , 9 ° 42 ′ 29.3" E