Dodoma town last week was thrown into confusion following Tanzania's worst train crash ever in which over 280 people died.

There was wailing at the Jamhuri stadium as the dead were brought in and laid out and anxious relatives went looking for their kin at the Dodoma regional hospital and Mpwapwa hospital.

At Ihumwa station, where the accident occurred, soldiers continued the search for bodies a week after the June 24 tragedy.

More than 100 soldiers, national servicemen, police and hundreds of volunteers from surrounding villages worked throughout the week, removing bodies trapped in the mangled wreckage of the 22 coaches.

The National Assembly, which was deliberating the national budget for 2002/03, was adjourned for two days as MPs joined rescuers and the government announced two days of national mourning.

Some of the MPs helped in identifying some of the 281 dead from their constituencies or helped their relatives with burial arrangements.

Speaker of the House Pius Msekwa said that those MPs who were medical doctors went to work as soon as the first casualties started arriving at Mpwapwa hospital on Monday.

Bodies were still being retrieved from the train wreckage by Thursday.

At Ward 15 (nursery ward) of the Dodoma hospital, one-and-a-half-year-old Eliza cried incessantly, calling out for "Mama, Mama." She sustained head injuries in the accident in which her mother died. Thousands of people whose relatives were on the doomed train, but whose names did not appear on the list of those admitted to Dodoma Hospital, queued at the local football stadium to identify their bodies.

Most could not control their emotions and wailed openly. Furaha Kasika of Dar es Salaam collapsed and had to be helped to his feet when he found the bodies of his mother, sister and daughter at the stadium.

At Dodoma Hospital, young Simon Peter of Salasala, Dar es Salaam, waited impatiently for word of the whereabouts of his brother, his sister-in-law and their child who were travelling from Dar es Salaam to Shinyanga.

Some 700 passengers, out of an estimated 1,200 who were on the train, escaped unhurt and were provided with another train to take them to their respective destinations in Tabora, Kigoma, Sinyanga, Mwanza, Kagera and Mara regions.

People who have travelled on TRC trains say that although Third Class coaches have a sitting capacity for 80, they take on hundreds more at small stations between Morogoro and Dodoma.

An unknown number of survivors are said to have discontinued their journeys and returned to Dar es Salaam on buses

By last Friday, over 370 were still admitted in hospitals in Dodoma, Mpawawa and Kongwa, while others had been transferred to the Muhimbili referral hospital in Dar.

While Prime Minister Fredrick Sumaye has dismissed rumours that the accident was the work of saboteurs, some people say that workers of the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) had threatened a few weeks ago to damage railway lines unless a workers' voluntary agreement was reached and signed before an impending retrenchment.

However, other people say that TRC locomotives are old and can easily lose their propelling power and start rolling back down the track.

The driver of the ill-fated train, God Chiwelesa, is in police custody helping with the investigation being conducted by a government committee.

Some passengers who had disembarked at the last stop to brush their teeth said that they saw their train suddenly start moving back on the gradual gradient and then picking up speed.

It threw up a huge cloud of dust at it hurtled down the 44 km stretch of line, which it covered in 15 minutes before crashing into a Dodoma-Dar bound cargo train between Igandu and Msagali. TRC officials said that at normal speed, the train would have covered the distance in 30 minutes.

"Ilikuwa kama mlima unapasuka," (It sounded like the mountain was exploding) said one Matonya, an eyewitness of the crash.

Some people clambered out of the mangled wagons unscathed, he said, adding: "We saved some people before the soldiers came in."

A contingent of 60 army officers arrived only a few hours after the crash, but they did not have appropriate tools to cut through the metal of the coaches.

The international community has offered help in various forms. The US has contributed $50,000 worth of emergency assistance, while Canada has donated $25,000 and China $10,000.

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