Sergei Cotelnic, head of the Moldovan Railways (CFM), told Radio Free Europe that the freight cars that derailed near the village of Chircani, north of Cahul, were carrying Moldovan grain, and that this shipment was not part of the recent agreement with Ukraine on cargo transit.
Seven cars from a larger train derailed, but “were returned to the tracks within a few hours and transported to the port of Giurgiulești,” Cotelnic said.
The exact causes of the derailment were unclear at the time of publication, but the head of CFM says that such an incident near Chircani is not out of the ordinary; in his words, it is not a “surprising occurrence.”
“We were aware of this problematic section of track, so we were moving slowly and carefully. When we derailed, we stopped, put the cars back on the tracks, and continued on our way,” says Cotelnic.
Why is the railway line to Cahul “problematic”?
The Iargara–Cantemir–Cahul railway section, where the incident occurred on August 15, was built in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, and today it is “in terrible condition.”
This description comes from former CFM Director Oleg Tofilat, who confirmed the current director’s statement to Radio Free Europe.
The road, which crosses unstable terrain with rugged topography, was not “properly maintained” either during the Soviet era or since independence because “there was little traffic there.”
At the time, this line was extended from Cahul to Giurgiulești. The approximately 50-kilometer-long section was hastily built in 2007–2008 to enhance the value of the cargo port in Giurgiulești, at the confluence of the Prut and Danube rivers.
However, the route passes through unstable terrain—in Veleni and Slobozia Mare, it crosses the Prut River and Lake Beleu near the border—and the clay soil “slips” under the weight of heavy cargo.
Consequently, just a few years after the new railroad line was put into operation, a significant section of the embankment collapsed, and traffic has been periodically suspended since 2014.
CFM now plans to repair it, and work is scheduled to begin “this year.”
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