No warning sign despite check on rail tracks

KOTA KINABALU: A sweep of the railway tracks just 25 minutes before Wednesday’s deadly train plunge into the Padas River in the interior had found nothing amiss.

“It is a very unfortunate incident. Our men did not see any warning signs of instability that indicated an imminent collapse of the tracks along the river bank,” Sabah Railway Department director James Wong said yesterday.

He said that technicians had done the daily routine maintenance checks along the rail tracks between 2.35pm and 2.50pm and found no indication that the riverbank would collapse hardly 30 minutes later.

Two people were killed and four others injured among the 41 people on board a locomotive and two carriages that plunged 10m into the river when the rail tracks collapsed in a landslip at the riverbank in Kampung Pangi area near Tenom here at 3.15pm.

A ‘railcar’: An old mini-locomotive carrying Sabah Railway Department workers and Kampung Rayoh residents to Tenom town on Friday as an alternative form of transport following the accident. — Bernama

Wong said works were under way to repair and shift the tracks further way from the Padas riverbanks. They were also fishing out the carriages and the locomotive from the fast flowing river.

“We managed to remove one of the carriages on Friday and are hoping to take out the second carriage and locomotive from the river in the next few days,” he said, adding that they were using an excavator to winch it out.

However, rail operations were not totally stopped. In the last two days, a “railcar” ran the 20km stretch between Kg Rayoh to Beaufort to send students to Beaufort.

“The train is the only mode of transport for these students, we have to provide this temporary service,” he said, adding that the tracks would be totally closed for two days sometime next week for intensive checks on the rails between Beaufort and Tenom.

Sabah’s 134km railway track is the only one in Borneo. A section of the tracks were closed from Kota Kinablu to Beaufort for major upgrading since last year.