Dozens injured in Israeli passenger train fire

Dozens of people suffered minor injuries Tuesday when a fire broke out on a passenger train on Israel's main, north- south railway line, police said.

At least 107 people were taken to hospital, most of whom were hurt slightly, a spokesman from the Magen David Adom ambulance service said, DPA reported.

Five were in moderate condition from smoke inhalation or with small burns and cuts from broken glass.

The train was on the way from the northern port of Haifa to the central coastal city of Tel Aviv when the fire broke out in one of the last of five carriages, Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

He said the cause of the fire was not yet known, but experts were investigating it. "It doesn't seem to be" sabotage, he told the German Press Agency dpa.

At least two carriages were severely damaged.

Some 400 passengers had to be evacuated from the train, which stopped some 20 kilometres north of Tel Aviv.

Witnesses reported some panic and shoving and pushing as the passengers got off before the fire spread, and one shot at a window so that people could leave through it.