French prosecutors state there are no indications of foul play or an intentional attack following the derailment of a regional train between Rouen and Caen that left 44 people injured, including one 18-year-old woman initially hospitalized in critical condition.
Authorities investigating the derailment in northern France have pushed back against initial police suspicions of sabotage. While an anonymous police source initially indicated to the press that investigators were examining whether a deliberate act caused the accident, the public prosecutor’s office in Rouen has clarified that the current evidence points elsewhere.
Investigation Focus Turns to Track Obstruction in Rouen
The regional train derailed when a piece of rail track was found lying across the tracks between Rouen and Caen. The crash injured 44 passengers. Police and judicial officials are working to establish how the heavy metal piece ended up in the path of the oncoming service.
Sébastien Gallois, the public prosecutor in Rouen, addressed the theories surrounding the incident directly. At this moment, there are no indications of a malicious act with the intention to derail the train, and certainly not for an intentional attack Gallois said, according to reporting from the Netherlands public broadcaster. He confirmed that while the presence of the steel rail remains the most probable physical explanation for the accident, the ongoing police investigation has not yet uncovered how it arrived there.
Regional Leadership and Police Weighing Competing Hypotheses
Before the prosecutor’s office issued its update, regional officials expressed strong doubts that the obstruction occurred by accident. Hervé Morin, president of the regional administration in Normandy, publicly stated that he considered sabotage to be the most probable hypothesis in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
Morin pointed to the physical impossibility of the object appearing through routine means. According to his assessment of the site, a piece of rail track weighing an estimated 250 to 300 kilograms could not simply end up on the right-of-way by chance. He noted that another train had passed safely along the exact same route just one hour earlier, and no maintenance work had been scheduled or performed in the intervening time window.
Condition of Hospitalized Passengers and Next Steps
Among the 44 people injured in the north of France derailment, an 18-year-old woman suffered the most severe trauma, requiring emergency treatment in critical condition.
Medical updates released by the prosecutor’s office offer positive news on her recovery. The young woman is no longer in life-threatening danger, and doctors have confirmed there is no risk of permanent severe injury. Three other individuals remain hospitalized for non-life-threatening monitoring, while the remaining injured passengers have been treated and released as the judicial inquiry continues to examine the physical evidence on the line.
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