AKIPRESS.COM - At least 18 people were killed and 171 others injured on Sunday when one of Taiwan's newer, faster trains derailed on a curve along a popular weekend route, officials said, Telegraph reports.

The Puyuma express train was carrying more than 366 passengers from a suburb of Taipei in the north toward Taitung, a city on Taiwan's southeast coast, when it went off the tracks at 4:50pm, the Taiwan central government said in a statement.

Hours later, one of the train's eight cars was seen tipped over at about a 75-degree angle, with the entire right side destroyed. Firefighters with lights on their hard hats, fearing people may be trapped beneath the car, were looking underneath as a crane prepared to upend it.

The National Fire Agency cited the Cabinet spokesman's office as saying 22 people were killed and 171 injured in the disaster, but then lowered the toll to 18 saying there had been a miscalculation.

Some passengers were crushed to death, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Chen Chung-chi said. "Their train car turned over. They were crushed, so they died right away," General Chen said.

Soldiers have been removing bodies to identify them, he added, but nightfall was complicating rescue work.