JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Speeding has been blamed for the collision involving two Metrorail trains that killed 3 people in Pretoria, preliminary investigation from the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) of South Africa revealed on Thursday.

The collision which injured over 600 people occurred when one train en-route to Pretoria station collided with the rear of another train at Mountain View station on Tuesday.

"The damage on both trains indicates that the train to Pretoria station may have been traveling at a considerable speed," said the RSR.

Metrorail spokeswoman Lillian Mofokeng told Xinhua on Thursday that trains between Pretoria and Mabopane are "manually authorized." It means that the section from Pretoria north to Mountain View has been operating under manual authorization.

"We were manually authorizing the trains mainly because of issues of cable theft, " she added.

When trains are manually authorized, they are required to travel at a speed of 30 km/h, said the regulator, adding that speeding was a factor of the Tuesday accident even though the exact speed would be determined later.

Mofokeng also said Metrorail lost millions due to the crash. "R21 million (1.51 million U.S. dollars) is the estimated cost of the damages to our coaches and infrastructure at the station." Enditem

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