Indonesian train disaster kills 40

Rescue workers search for survivors in the wreckage

A rail crash on the Indonesian island of Java has left at least 40 people dead and many others injured.

Two passenger trains collided head-on on Saturday at a station in the town of Cirebon on the north coast of the island, about 200 kilometres east of Jakarta.

It looks like the results of human error

Railway spokesman

Hours after the crash, officials said more bodies still had to be recovered from the wreckage.

An investigation has begun, but the country's Minister of Transportation Agum Gumelar is reported to have said that human error was involved.

It is the latest in a series of train crashes in Indonesia in recent years, most of which have been blamed on signal failure.

A private radio station in the area quoted a railway official as saying that one of the trains had not followed proper procedures when entering the station, the French news agency AFP reported.

"It looks like the results of human error," said Gatot Wibowo, a spokesman for state railways company PT Kereta Api Indonesia.

One of the trains "ignored signals and entered the station without reducing speed", he added.

The passenger train was en route to the popular tourist resort of Yogyakarta, Central Java.

The disaster has cut rail links in northern Java, as Cirebon is one of the main stations on the line linking West Java and Central Java.

It is located 200km (125 miles) east of the capital Jakarta.