Ciurea rail disaster

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The Ciurea rail disaster, known in Romania as the Ciurea catastrophe (Romanian: Catastrofa de la Ciurea), occurred on 13 January 1917, during World War I, when a passenger train derailed and collided with a stationary train on another track. It occurred at Ciurea Station, in Iași County, a train station with a passing loop, located on the railway line from Iași to Bârlad. Two commissions of inquiry were held, one military and one technical; the report of the technical commission of the CFR, dated 24 January 1917, attributed the derailment to a failure of the Westinghouse brake caused by the severe overcrowding of the train, and found no fault on the part of the railway's staff. The death toll is also uncertain, with most sources indicating between 800 and 1,000 deaths. With these estimates, the Ciurea rail disaster is the second deadliest train wreck in history after the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck, and the deadliest in Europe.

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