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Taiwan tragedy: Train driver says he turned off speed-control system

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YILAN The driver of a train in Taiwan that crashed, killing 18 people, told a court yesterday that he had switched off its speed-control system, a court official said, as investigators pieced together the events that led to the island's worst rail crash in decades.

The train came off the rails on Sunday on a curve while moving at almost 140kmh, nearly twice the speed limit of 74kmh, the head of a government investigation team said.

Chief investigator Wu Ze-cheng told Reuters earlier it was unclear if the speed-control system, called automatic train protection, had switched off by itself or had been manually disabled before the accident, which also injured 187 people.

A Taiwan Yilan District Court spokesman said the driver told his bail hearing that he had switched off the system to boost the train's power when it had slowed down on an earlier stretch of the journey.

"He should have turned the system back on at the next stop," said court spokesman Huang Yong-sheng.

"The defendant is highly suspected to have been negligent."

The driver, Mr You Zhen-zhong, 48, was granted bail of NT$500,000 (S$22,245) and barred from leaving Taiwan after being detained for the investigation.

Mr You's public defender, Mr Kou Tua-jai, said the driver knew he had to turn the protection system back on, but he had failed to do so because he was busy communicating with other coordinators due to a separate problem with the train's speed.

"He admitted that he is responsible for dereliction of duty, but he'd like to raise one point: There was something wrong with the train," Mr Kou told Reuters.

He said the driver said the speed shown on the train's indicator was not its real speed.

Train derailments are not uncommon in Taiwan, which has rough, mountainous terrain, but deadly accidents are rare.- REUTERS

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