either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content A passenger train crashed into the back of a freight train in the eastern Belgian municipality of Saint-Georges-Sur-Meuse late on Sunday "A train...carrying around 40 passengers crashed into the back of a freight train on the same track," Belgian railways SNCB said in a statement "The collision derailed two of the six carriages." the mayor of the Saint-Georges-Sur-Meuse district told Belga news agency three people were dead and 40 injured in the crash Local emergency services and reinforcements from the nearest city of Liege were at the site of the crash The crash took place around one hour before midnight on Sunday Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground Newsletters in your inbox See all Passenger train derailed after crashing into back of freight train in east of country At least three people have been killed and nine injured in a high-speed train crash in eastern Belgium A fast-moving passenger train slammed into the back of a goods train on the same track on Sunday night a spokesman for Belgian railway infrastructure manager Infrabel Nine passengers were injured to varying degrees with some described as being in a critical condition by authorities during a press briefing near the crash scene The train was travelling eastwards on the Namur-Liège line when the accident occurred in Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse area at 11pm local time (9pm GMT) “The passenger train is really in a bad way “The front carriage is scrunched back up on itself We were very lucky not to have more victims,” he told the Belga news agency The train was travelling east on the Namur-Liège line when the accident occurred Photograph: Virginia Mayo/AP“Two of the six carriages derailed and are lying on the tracks,” Infrabel and the National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB) said in a joint statement The front carriage was completely turned on its side Belga said the collision had been “very violent” adding that fire and police services had been despatched from Liėge with several passengers having to be extracted from the wreckage A passenger on board described the scene as “chaos” to the local daily newspaper L’Avenir saying the front two carriages had been destroyed where the crash took place.The accident’s circumstances were not immediately clear with questions remaining over whether the passenger train was able to brake before the crash “The priority is to care for the victims,” Infrabel and SNCB said but added that information was already being analysed to determine how the crash took place A crisis centre was establiched at the scene In February 2010, 18 people were killed and 95 injured when two trains collided in a Brussels suburb in one of Europe’s deadliest railway accidents of the past decade one person was killed and nearly 50 injured when a train carrying highly toxic chemicals derailed and exploded near Ghent in May 2013 Belgium (AP) — A passenger train slammed at high speed into a slow-moving freight train in eastern Belgium killing three people and sending 10 others to the hospital The accident came just hours after reported lightning strikes and a signal disruption on the line Two cars from the passenger train derailed when it rear-ended the freight train around 11 p.m Belgian prosecutor Brigitte Leroy said the passenger train was traveling around 60 mph (100 kph) and the freight 6-9 mph (10-15 kph) at the time of the crash Earlier reports had said the freight train was stopped State broadcaster RTBF said the dead included two passengers and the train’s driver RTBF TV reported many of the passengers were students in their early 20s returning to school after the weekend Belgian media said only one of the injured was still being treated: a 26-year-old man who underwent two operations for broken ribs and vertebrae and abdominal pains Twenty-seven other passengers were treated at the scene told a news conference that the passenger train’s first car was so badly smashed in the wreck “it was curled back on itself.” The second of the six cars also derailed and came to a stop listing on its side Belgian railway police and state prosecutors were investigating the cause of the accident Belgium’s King Philippe and Prime Minister Charles Michel visited the crash site Monday afternoon thanking rescue workers and viewing the derailed said no effort would be spared to find out why the accident occurred It took rescuers three hours to free people from the wreckage of the train which carried around 40 people when it crashed 17 miles (27 kilometers) southwest of the city of Liege while traveling from Mouscron to Liers The wheels and axle of one train car were knocked loose by the impact A large chunk of wreckage jutted up from the freight train of around 20 cars Belgium’s national railway operation reported on its Twitter account Sunday that there was “a signals disruption” on the rail line about an hour and a half before the wreck occurred a separate company that oversees Belgium’s rail infrastructure said installations where the wreck occurred “were hit by lightning” earlier Sunday “It’s an element we’re going to have to look at but it’s premature to see this as the cause of the accident,” spokesman Frederic Sacre said a similar collision between a passenger train and a freight that was slowing down occurred 100 yards (meters) from the location of Sunday’s wreck A police tribunal in 2010 found the passenger train’s driver guilty of causing the accident by ignoring signals He and the other locomotive driver only narrowly escaped near-certain death Sacre said it will be up to investigators to determine if there are any similarities with Sunday night’s accident The wreck halted train service between Namur and Liege and an SNCB spokeswoman said it could take several days to clear the tracks said it may be months before the crash investigation is complete Stay secure and make sure you have the best reading experience possible by upgrading your browser A consortium of four Belgian industrial players – Prefer Lhoist and Orbix – have joined forces to help decarbonise Belgian industry and provide a sustainable solution for the construction sector They have now been selected by an European innovation fund (Innovation Fund Small Scale) and will receive a €4.5 million grant The CO2ncrEAT project was born out of carbonation technology developed by Orbix that enables a path for the sustainable re-use of certain steel industry co-products The technology involves triggering a reaction between these materials and CO2 in the manufacture of construction elements Lhoist and Orbix joined forces to deploy this “CO2 eating project” (CO2ncrEAT) Reducing CO2 emissions is the project’s key objective Every year nearly 12,000 tonnes of CO2 will be captured transported and reused in masonry blocks instead of being emitted into the atmosphere the raw materials used to produce the blocks will be CO2 and recycled co-products from the steel industry thereby preventing an additional 8,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions Another driver is the need to offer the construction sector innovative and environmentally friendly products it will bring to the market masonry blocks with a negative CO2 footprint These blocks will sequester more CO2 than it takes to produce them The blocks produced this way will be distributed as a replacement for conventional concrete blocks in line with demand from the construction market the processes will remain the same while the materials will have a positive environmental impact This project also combines multiple technologies to capture CO2 directly from industrial fumes and reuse it in building materials It is also being deployed rapidly compared to other CO2 sequestration projects in Europe In conjunction with the EU Innovation Fund Lhoist and Orbix will invest in the Lhoist site in Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse and the Prefer site in Hermalle-sous-Huy to set up the infrastructure needed for the project In addition to its positive impact on the environment CO2ncrEAT will ensure their business activities are firmly rooted locally and will pioneer the deployment of CO2 capture and reuse technology in Europe our masonry blocks will be made of circular and local raw materials making our production process sustainable and considerably efficient The Prefer block of tomorrow will keep all the advantages of the traditional block with the difference that it will benefit from a negative carbon footprint Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id" "a3590843769fa3b24f957d272fdbe845" );document.getElementById("c08a1a06c7").setAttribute( "id" A fast-moving passenger train late Sunday slammed violently into the back of a slow-moving freight train that was travelling on the same track for reasons that remain unexplained Authorities said lightning and flood damage caused by heavy storms that affected all of western Europe in the past few days were being explored as a possible cause but a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office in Liege warned that finding the cause "would be difficult" Nine passengers were injured to varying degrees with some described as being in a critical condition by authorities during a press briefing near the scene of the crash There were roughly 40 passengers on board the train that was travelling at about 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour at the moment of the collision Investigators believe the passenger train rammed into the freight train that was travelling at about 10-15 kilometres an hour a spokeswoman from the prosecutor's office The train was travelling from the west to the east of Belgium on the Namur-Liege line when the accident occurred in the municipality of Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT) The crash killed the driver of the passenger train "The passenger train is really in a bad way mayor of Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse who had been following rescue operations "The front carriage is scrunched back up on itself We were very lucky not to have more victims," he told the Belgian news agency Belga "Two of the six carriages derailed and are lying on the tracks," the Infrabel railway infrastructure company and the National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB) said in a joint statement Witnesses told Belga news agency the collision had been "very violent," said investigators would look carefully at a report of lightening on the tracks about 90 minutes before the crash The SNCB rail company on Sunday evening said lightning had caused signal problems near the site "The investigation will tell us if there is a link with the recent storms," said Leroy "There was a lot of rain yesterday (Sunday) other train lines were completely flooded," she said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel was to visit the scene with Belgium's King Philippe later on Monday "All my condolences for the families of the victims.. and a fast recovery to the injured," Michel said on Twitter A crash in 2008 took place almost at the exact same location That incident was later blamed on human error and a power failure 18 people were killed and 95 injured when two trains collided in a Brussels suburb in one of Europe's deadliest railway accidents of the past decade one person was killed and nearly 50 injured when a train carrying highly toxic chemicals derailed and exploded near the city of Ghent in May 2013