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TGV driver jumps to his death from moving high-speed train

The driver of a high-speed train carrying about 400 passengers committed suicide by jumping onto the tracks as it passed a village around 60 kilometres south-east of Paris, setting off emergency brakes that brought the train to a halt with no-one reported to be injured.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

The suicide by a train driver on the job has caused widespread delays in France’s rail traffic, operator SNCF said on Wednesday, reports Al Arabiya News.

Some 3,000 train passengers have been affected by delays in services between Paris and southeastern France that started Tuesday and spilled over into Wednesday.

Around 10 high-speed (TGV) trains were delayed by up to five hours Tuesday after the suicide on Christmas Eve, an exceptionally busy time for travel.

The prosecutors’ office in Melun, southeast of Paris, told AFP that the driver appeared to have jumped to his death from the moving train.

His body was discovered later near the tracks.

Without a driver operating the controls, the train’s automatic emergency procedure kicked in, causing the train to stop, the office said.

An investigation into the circumstances of the death was ongoing.

Read more of this AFP report published by Al Arabiya News.