A man travelling in a pickup truck was slightly injured after his vehicle was struck by a train on the newly opened northern rail line in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet town and pushed for about 50 metres before coming to a stop.
The incident occurred on Saturday morning in the border town when the train hit the Nissan pickup, which was being driven across the tracks by Chuon Sovann, said Chhoeun Buntha, Poipet town traffic police chief.
The crash caused Sovann to faint out of shock, Buntha said.
“However, the victim has not filed a complaint to demand for compensation and instead asked the police for his car to fix it himself, accepting it was his mistake for driving carelessly,” he said.
Sovann was taken to a Poipet hospital and his car impounded at the police station, Buntha said. He added that since the opening of the train line, another accident had occurred but resulted in no fatalities.
While passenger and freight operations have been running on the southern line from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, construction is still ongoing for the northern section, with the passenger services commencing on 60 kilometres of track between Poipet and Mongkol Borey district earlier this month.
Provincial Governor Suon Bovor on Sunday appealed to residents to be careful while crossing the tracks and said train operators should try and signal villagers to warn them. Representatives from Royal Railways, the concessionaire in charge of the rail line, could not be reached on Sunday.
