Train services partially resumed one day after derailment in Hong Kong

HONG KONG - Train services connecting Hong Kong's Hung Hom with neighboring Shenzhen on the mainland were partially resumed on Wednesday, a day after a train derailment left eight passengers injured.

After overnight repair efforts, the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corp., operator of Hong Kong's train networks, reopened platform No. 4 for the MTR East Rail line at Hung Hom, where three carriages of a commuter train derailed Tuesday.

Trains from Hung Hom station to Lo Wu station are running at seven-minute intervals, while trains leave Mong Kok East for Lo Wu every three and a half minutes. Passengers going to Lok Ma Chau must change at Tai Po Market station, where trains are running at 12-minute intervals.

The wreckage of the derailed carriages had been removed from track Wednesday morning.

The accident occurred at around 8:30 a.m. local time Tuesday when a train carrying hundreds of passengers came off track near the Hung Hom station, injuring at least eight people onboard.

Five of the injured passengers, including one male and four females, were taken to the hospital for treatment.

The cause of the derailment is still under investigation. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and the MTR Corp. have vowed to carry out a "thorough investigation" and would not rule out any possibility.

Over the past month, facilities of Hong Kong's train networks have become a major target of sabotage and vandalism by radical protesters amid prolonged chaos in the city.

Train services of different MTR lines were forced to shut down time and again, as rioters threw iron sticks, bricks and stones on the rail, intruded into the tracks, set fires on exits of MTR stations, or smashed ticket machines and other facilities inside MTR stations.