Ciurea rail disaster

Ciurea rail disaster

Location of Ciurea within present-day Iași County
Date	14 January [O.S. 1 January] 1917
Time	1 a.m.
Location	Ciurea station 10 km (6.2 mi) S from Iași
Coordinates	46°53′17″N 27°11′12″E / 46.88806°N 27.18667°E / 46.88806; 27.18667Coordinates: 46°53′17″N 27°11′12″E / 46.88806°N 27.18667°E / 46.88806; 27.18667
Country	Kingdom of Romania
Rail line	Bârlad–Iași
Operator	CFR
Type of incident	Derailment
Cause	Brake failure
Statistics
Trains	1
Deaths	800–1,000

Ciurea rail disaster, known in Romania as Ciurea catastrophe (Romanian: Catastrofa de la Ciurea),^[1] occurred on 13 January 1917,^[2] in full swing of World War I, at Ciurea station, Iași County, a station with passing loop on the railway line from Iași to Bârlad. Due to the absence of a formal investigation, causes of the accident have not been fully elucidated, and the death toll is still unknown, most sources indicating between 800 and 1,000 deaths.^[3] Thus, Ciurea rail disaster is the third worst rail accident in world history, in terms of victims.

The accident

Train E-1,^[4] nicknamed "the Courier", consisting of a gasket of 26 wagons, left Galați with destination Iași Friday, 11 January [O.S. 30 December 1916] 1917, with a delay of several hours, because the station had been bombed by German airplanes, and its locomotive, hit by bombs, had to be replaced. Occupation of Brăila by Germans, who began to bomb Galați, determined refugees in Muntenia to leave the town that became unsafe. They were joined by students and soldiers in permissions. Alongside Romanians, in the train traveled Russian officers and soldiers,^[5] but also members of the French military mission.^[4] Among the most known travelers were Emil Costinescu, former Minister of Finance, Yvonne Blondel, daughter of former French ambassador to Bucharest,^[6] geographer George Vâlsan and marquis de Belloy (French official). Very soon, the train became overcrowded.^[7] In the stations on route were added wagons, the train stationing for hours as hundreds of travelers tried to make room.

Travel conditions were terrible: the wagons, many of them boxcars, illuminated by gas lamps, were cold, the windows had no glass, but planks that failed to prevent the ingress of coldness. On the roofs of the wagons, travelers died of cold. "To our horror, a man and a 10-year-old boy were taken down frozen. Other shadows that were staggering, hardened by cold, recounted that, at some curves, many people – men and women – had been thrown off the train", writes Yvonne Blondel.^[8]

The train stationed all night in Bârlad because the snow fallen in abundance blocked the rail traffic, despite the efforts of soldiers and railwaymen to release the line. The next day, on 12 January, the convoy went to Iasi, all 120 kilometers being traveked throughout the day, reaching Ciurea around one o'clock at night,^[9] when the accident occurred.

After the last stationing, at Bârnova, the train entered the glide slope at Ciurea station, just a few kilometers from Iași. When mechanics and other crew members tried to reduce speed, they realized that the brakes, though checked at Bălteni station, could not be operated.^[10] "Mișcarea" newspaper informed readers that the compressed air brake system functioned only for the first two wagons, the valve being accidentally closed at the third wagon. The result was its derailment and collision with a locomotive stationing on other line. Locomotive speedometer needle was found stuck at 95 km/h,^[11] indicating the speed the train had in those moments. The critical moment of the accident is described: "I felt perfectly how the train jumped off the rail like a monstrous reptile of iron and steel, pulling all its travelers to mutilation or the great travel to beyond... I had the feeling that I'm thrown into the bottom of a pit, a rain of objects sliding around my body... How long this torment? A few minutes, but to me it seemed interminable...".

Receiving signals launched by locomotive drivers, Ciurea railway station employees activated a switch so that the train to enter line 2 and avoid collision with vagons with tar that were stationing on line 1. Because of high speed and high veering angle only the locomotive and one wagon managed to enter line 2; of the other wagons, with the exception of only two that remained on the line, the rest of them derailed. It seems that at least one of the wagons collided fuel tanks, triggering an explosion and a huge fire. The train burned like a torch in less than two hours. Yvonne Blondel was escaped in extremis by two soldiers of the French military mission, which pulled her out of the train wreck exactly when her clothes were ablaze.^[12] Other passengers died in fire or crushed by the impact of the derailment.^[13] Those traveling on the roofs of the wagons were either thrown under the wagons, where perished truncated by their weight or were thrown into the snow. The same French survivor describes with details the scenes of the tragedy, including the emergence of profiteers, who robbed the travelers. On the spot arrived teams of rescuers – soldiers of the ammunition depot near the train station, a battalion of railways, two companies of Romanian soldiers and two companies of Russian soldiers. Those who saved themselves, in state of shock, but also the wounded were transported to Iași station, where they were given first aid.

Lack of information

The lack of information on the accident is generated primarily by the exceptional situation in which the Romanian state was at the time.^[4] The Kingdom of Romania was at war with the Central Powers, and the administration, the military, and most citizens took refuge in Moldavia. The Romanian state was about to be occupied and dismantled by the Germans. Given the state of war, few newspapers managed to inform about the accident. It is not very clear whether there was an investigation and where are its results.^[14] As such, the sources of information for researchers are limited to testimonies of survivors over time, memoirs, press, interwar publications that have addressed the issue.^[15]

Likewise, discussions emerged on whether the photo circulated in media was authentic and depicted the actual derailment at Ciurea. Taken, as stated, on 19 January [O.S. 6 January] 1917, it does not show any trace of snow, although two distinct memoir sources talk about passengers that were on the roofs of cars and survived because they were thrown in the snow fallen in large quantities in those days.^[16][17] As such, this photo is not dated correctly.^[15] It is known that Ciurea was the site of several railway accidents sometime in the early 20th century and in 1925.^[18] Most likely it was taken by one of those occasions.

Reactions

In the first hours after the accident, on the spot arrived officials – Dimitrie Greceanu, Minister of Public Works, the prosecutor general, the prefect of Iasi, but also Security agents who began to inquire witnesses.^[19] By the morning, the news was spread throughout the city. Daylight revealed the magnitude of the tragedy: "Passing through Ciurea I looked the disaster: wagons crushed, burned and teams of workers drew more dead under the wreck. Behind the station were strung on four rows the dead... Were several hundreds. With eyes removed, heads broken, arms detached, hands, legs, burned bogies. Women, officers, soldiers...".^[20] Another notes: "A whole string of wagons burned, that don't retain only the metal skeletion, soaked like wax by the fire that consumed it... around the station everything seemed ruin and grave...".^[21]

Hundreds of bodies were found among the twisted metals of the gasket. The victims were strung near the station and countless calls were made to people to help identify the victims.^[22] Very few victims have been identified. The bodies were buried in mass graves on the field behind the Ciurea station,^[13] starting with 3 January,^[23] for the victims identified to date – 374 people.^[24] In the following days, at the commandment in the station market, were announced the provisional lists of names of the dead identified. Soon, rumors began to spread: there were discussions about fortunes evaporated in the fire or looted by thieves of opportunity, the death toll was amplified, and famous names were circulated among the victims. In German-occupied Muntenia, a memoirist tells that the media reported about the accident at Ciurea, noting with malicious joy "the death of Take Ionescu, Cantacuzino (Minister of Justice), Costinescu (Minister of Finance)".^[25]

Today, only a cross remembers the disaster, the one of Vasile Cantacuzino, son of eminent jurist and politician Matei B. Cantacuzino.

References