Injured passenger is attended to (Faraja Jube)

Seven people were killed in Mpwapwa district, Dodoma, when a passenger train travelling to Dar es Salaam from Kigoma rammed into a freight train that had stopped due to engine failure. Speaking at the scene of the accident, Infrastructure Development minister Shukuru Kawambwa blamed the crash on “sheer negligence”, and ordered the arrest of the drivers of the ill-fated trains and stationmasters in charge of the two stations.

The BBC later reported that Police suspect the train crash may have been caused deliberately so that petrol could be stolen from the fuel tanks. The accident took place between Gulwe and Igandu stations near the spot where two trains collided in 2002, killing 281 people in Africa’s worst rail disaster.