Serious injuries confirmed in 'shocking' train derailment

The train derailment that took place this afternoon in East Sussex, just outside Lewis. Three carriages of an eight carriage Victoria to Eastbourne service overturned. Pictures provided to LBC from the scene show that the rail line appears to have significantly buckled, although what caused that is not known at this point. A senior government source tells us there have been no fatalities, although the images do show passengers picking themselves up from a train that one witness described as being upside down. LBC's reporter Helen Hoddernot is with me here in the studio now with the very latest and Helen you do have some fresh information. Well that's right Simon, we have just heard from the South East Coast Ambulance who have confirmed that two people sustained serious injuries. Also saying that there were about 150 people on board the train when it derailed this afternoon. This incident took place at around 3.54, this southern rail passenger train derailing close to Lewis station. It was traveling north of the station at the time. Several of the rear carriages are understood to have come off the tracks and ended up lying on their sides. One of the carriages looked like it had slid part way down the grassy embankment and we've seen photos showing the inside of the derailed carriages with passengers pressed up against the windows. We're told that there were quite a few older passengers on this train as well. Other photos show people out of their seats standing upright in the carriage at the new orientation that it was at or climbing sideways out of the carriage into the grassy embankment to the side. Images too from outside showing people standing on top of the overturned carriages or sitting down in the gravel next to the track and one dad who was on the train with his six-year-old daughter has told press how their train jumped vertically upwards. The emergency brakes went on he said and everything got thrown forward saying it skidded for quite a while before it stopped. He said we turned around and saw the whole back of the train was open and smoke and dust were pouring into the carriage and they saw that the fifth carriage had gone on its side. He says a number of air ambulances flew in. He saw people with head injuries, blood and cuts saying that passengers remained on board for about half an hour after the derailment. Adding of course that with the weather today it was incredibly hot on that train because the air conditioning has stopped working and no windows or doors were open. Now of course there's been a huge emergency services response. There's been British Transport, Police, Paramedics and Firefighters attending the scene. As we've heard from the government, the government sources told LBC that there are no fatalities and on that cause we still don't have an official reason for the derailment. The photos that we have seen show what appears to be a buckled section of the track and of course we do know that in extreme heat train tracks can buckle but while there is an official investigation going on we don't quite have the cause at the moment. But for now transport is seriously disrupted and the public are being told to avoid the area. Helen Hoddenott, LBC's reporter, thanks very much for that and in terms of traffic being disrupted there are certainly no train services running between Brighton and Lewis at the moment, between Haywards Heath and Lewis and between Seaford or Eastbourne and Lewis and travellers are being advised to obviously delay their journey until later today or use an alternative route to travel. Also joining me now is James McCleary, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewis. Mr McCleary, thank you very much indeed for joining us on what I'm sure has been a somewhat alarming day. Can you confirm, we've heard reports that at least two people have been injured and taken to hospital for treatment. There were no fatalities. Is there any indication yet, preliminary indication, of what may have caused this derailment? Good evening. Good evening to you. In terms of the injuries that's a very latest update is the two serious injuries. I've only just heard about that very very recently and it's very concerning news. It's obviously great to hear that there are no fatalities because obviously I think when we saw the images of the incident it did look very serious and it is very serious and so I think the first thought for most people was that maybe people might have died in the incident but fortunately they haven't so I hope that those two people who are being treated are okay. In terms of causes, look we're going to have to wait for the rail incident investigation people to get down there and and find out what happened. There's obviously the images of buckled tracks. We know that the extreme heat both here and indeed elsewhere in Europe has been causing issues for rail services and we've had speed restrictions in the area for that reason so we'll have to see what the investigation shows us. I mean we don't know as you were saying what the cause of this was but the one thing we do know is that the emergency services had to respond to this incident in the middle of an oppressive heat wave and that in and of itself sends us a message and of course the passengers had to endure the entire incident and then the rescue and recovery of them in the middle of an oppressive heat wave. Absolutely and look you don't have to go far down where you can see the south downs are brown and dry and look like a tinderbox. It's had a huge impact this latest heat wave as are the impacts more widely of climate change which we seem to be woefully under prepared for. The French authorities recently announced they were going to start replacing tracks to withstand heat up to 50 degrees. We've done little in this country to start to build our climate resilience obviously for those passengers concerned. You know having the shock of what happened in terms of the derailment and then dealing with as you say really challenging conditions just compounded the issues and as for the emergency services they just have our gratitude. There's an amazing response. I think your previous report mentioned the air ambulance who of course a charity responded immediately to help people who've been affected and I know that everybody in Lewes is enormously grateful for all of their hard work today. And when you and your colleagues return to the House of Commons in September do you think that the not only of today but of the last several weeks we're into the fifth heat wave of the year. This is the hottest day of the year the fifth hottest on record. Are they going to result in at least you and your fellow Liberal Democrats and I wonder what you think about cross-party views on this. Is it going to result in fresh impetus for a national plan on climate change to be devised and implemented. It's clearly urgent I mean as Liberal Democrats we've been talking about this for a long time as an environmentalist party we've pressed so hard to get faster movement on on what we knew was coming down the line. My whole lifetime we've been warned that this was going to happen that climate change was going to have huge consequences for all our lives and you can see it's putting people's lives at risk. There are wildfires right now burning in this country threatening people's homes. We've seen what's happened in the rest of Europe in that regard too and now we're seeing potential impacts on other areas including transport. So yes it gives real impetus I mean obviously we have a by-election taking place today where the individual who's caused it likes to deny a lot of these things or anything to do with climate change and I think what we do need to work cross-party with the government and with other parties who do acknowledge this is real and get an action plan in place because it's urgent and it's urgent for us now and it's even more urgent for my kids. James McCleary thanks very much for being with us at the end of what I know has been a challenging day the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewis.