Congo train crash death toll expected to rise

KAKENGE RIVER, Congo, Aug 5 (Reuters) Rescue workers have abandoned hope of finding more survivors nearly four days after a train crash killed at least 100 people in a remote part of Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bodies lay crushed between eight freight cars that jumped the tracks on Wednesday night near a bridge over the Kakenge River, some 170 km northwest of Kananga, capital of Western Kasai province.

Workers wearing rags over their faces to protect against the overpowering stench of decomposing corpses continued to work today to clear the tracks.

But cranes needed to lift the heavy wagons have yet to arrive and rescuers fear the death toll will climb when the cars are removed, revealing more bodies trapped beneath.

The dead had been riding illegally on the roof or in between carriages of the freight train when the accident happened.

Medical staff who arrived soon after the crash, which Congolese rail officials say was caused by a brake failure, said many victims had died due to lack of medical supplies and the remoteness of the site.

''We are not equipped. We are working without gloves, without equipment, without bicycles or means of transportation,'' Pierre Malienge, head of the local Red Cross office, told Reuters.

''We are making the 12 km trip back and forth (to the crash site) on foot.'' Malienge said many victims bled to death trying to reach the nearest clinic, where doctors were forced to operate on the injured in a maternity delivery room.

More than 100 seriously wounded were still being treated yesterday. Many of the dead have already been buried at a site not far from the crash.

Some medical supplies donated by foreign relief agencies were initially sent from Kananga by helicopter. But several tonnes of medicine and medical equipment took three days to arrive from the distant capital, Kinshasa.

The central African nation has few paved roads outside the capital and many Congolese rely on trains as the only affordable way of crossing the vast interior.

Derailments are a regular occurrence and fatal accidents are common in Congo, which is still recovering from decades of mismanagement and a 1998-2003 war that killed an estimated 4 million people and left infrastructure in ruins.

REUTERS RSA RAI1851