AFP, Hualien

Grieving relatives of those who died in Taiwan’s worst rail disaster in decades held prayers at the crash site yesterday as salvage crews worked to remove the tangled mass of wrecked carriages.

Officials said Friday’s devastating collision, which killed at least 50 people and injured more than 170, was caused when a parked railway maintenance vehicle slipped down an embankment and onto the tracks.

A train packed with as many as 500 people at the start of a long holiday weekend then hit the truck just as it entered a narrow tunnel near the eastern coastal city of Hualien.

The truck driver -- who railway officials said may have failed to secure the parking brake properly -- has been released on bail after being interrogated by prosecutors and is barred from leaving Taiwan pending further investigation.

Around one hundred relatives held an emotional Taoist prayer ceremony near the crash site yesterday afternoon, shaded under a canopy of black umbrellas.

Many wept openly as they surveyed the scene, some holding makeshift shrines inscribed with the names of those who died.

Some called out the names of their loved ones as other family members held them tight.

The Interior Ministry ordered all flags to be lowered to half-mast for three days while President Tsai Ing-wen visited the wounded in Hualien’s hospitals.

Friday’s crash took place at the start of the Tomb Sweeping Festival, a four-day public holiday when many Taiwanese return to villages to tidy the graves of their ancestors.

A French and an American national were among the foreigners killed, authorities said. The youngest victim was 4-years-old.

Friday’s crash looks set to be one of Taiwan’s worst railway accidents on record. The last major train derailment in Taiwan was in 2018 and left 18 people dead on the same eastern line.

That crash was the island’s worst since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed. Other major crashes that killed dozens have taken place in 1981, 1978 and 1961.

Taiwan’s most deadly rail disaster on record was in 1948 when a train caught fire and 64 people perished.