Croatia: 20 Hurt in Head-On Train Collision Near Skrinjari
A HŽ Cargo freight train passed a stop signal and collided head on with a passenger train near Skrinjari in Koprivnica-Krizevci County. Six people were seriously injured.
A train collision that left 20 people injured on Saturday morning unfolded along lines familiar to every railway network in the region, Serbia’s included: two trains scheduled to pass each other at a station, one track assigned to both, and one of them failing to stop where the timetable required. A HŽ Cargo freight train and a HŽ Putnicki prijevoz passenger train collided head on at 10:05 am on the stretch between Sveti Ivan Zabno and Gradec stations, near the village of Skrinjari, in Koprivnica-Krizevci County. About twenty passengers were on board the passenger train.
There were no fatalities. According to Croatia’s Ministry of Health, six people were seriously injured and 14 sustained lighter injuries, with none in life-threatening condition. Going by the nature of the injuries, the outcome was less severe than the scene photos suggest, in which both locomotives’ front cabins are crushed.
Who was treated, and where
Seven of the injured were treated at the General Hospital in Bjelovar. The hospital’s director, Sanela Grbas Bratkovic, said the most seriously hurt patient is a younger woman who is in intensive care in stable condition, while three other patients are awaiting CT scan results. The General Hospital in Koprivnica admitted six lightly injured passengers. Those with more serious injuries were transferred to hospitals in Zagreb.
Among them is the passenger train’s driver, a man from Bjelovar, who was flown by emergency medical helicopter to Zagreb’s Rebro hospital. The freight train’s driver, from Zagreb, escaped without serious injury but, according to his union, is in severe shock.
The emergency response was larger in scale than the casualty count alone suggests:
- 51 firefighters worked at the scene with nine vehicles and a special vehicle from the public fire unit in Djurdjevac
- six ground ambulance crews and a helicopter emergency medical unit treated the injured
- one locomotive’s fuel tank was damaged, spilling roughly 1,400 liters of fuel, which was pumped out before it could leak further
Chief fire commander Slavko Tucakovic said foam was applied preventively in front of both locomotives, removing the fire risk before it could materialize. County prefect Tomislav Golubic also monitored the response on site, his presence confirming that the crash occurred in Koprivnica-Krizevci County rather than the neighboring Bjelovar-Bilogora County, as some outlets reported in the first hours simply because Bjelovar is the nearest larger city.
Why the freight train was on that track at all
Unofficially, the freight train, traveling from Bjelovar toward Zabno station, was supposed to stop and wait to pass the oncoming passenger train, which had been dispatched on schedule from Gradec station. Instead, it passed a signal that prohibited it from proceeding further.
In railway practice, that ranks among the most serious incidents on record, and investigations routinely split it into two separate questions: what the driver saw and did, and whether a system existed on that stretch that should have stopped the train automatically once the signal was disobeyed. The answer to the second question determines whether this was an individual failure or a gap in the infrastructure.
Croatia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tomo Medved, speaking at the scene, said preliminary indications point to either a technical fault or human error, while cautioning that establishing the cause should be left to the competent authorities.
Union: our colleague is conscious
The Locomotive Drivers’ Union of Croatia confirmed that the injured passenger train driver is conscious. The union’s deputy president, Dalibor Petrovic, said: “We hope our colleague will be fine. He’s conscious and able to communicate.” He spoke at greater length about the freight train’s driver:
“This is a young colleague from Zagreb, one of the best trained engineers we have at Cargo. He is in severe shock and under a great deal of stress because of everything that happened.”
That assessment is not a formality. If it turns out that the train which passed the signal was driven by someone with confirmed training and a clean record, the focus of the investigation shifts from the individual to the conditions he was working under, meaning the signaling, the timetable, and the protection systems on a single-track line.
As an EU member, Croatia is required to have a serious railway accident investigated by a body independent of both the infrastructure manager and the train operator, so the finding on the cause will not come from HŽ itself but from an independent inquiry. For passengers from Serbia who travel this railway toward Zagreb and onward to Slovenia and Austria, that finding will be concrete information about the safety standard of the network they pass through.
The section between Sveti Ivan Zabno and Gradec remains closed to traffic. The on-site investigation is ongoing, and the line will reopen only once it is complete.
