Two trains collided Thursday at 13:30 local time (1130 GMT) in a tunnel at the northern outskirts of Belgrade, injuring 22 people.

Accident happened when a passenger train from Belgrade to Sid stopped in the tunnel due to an engine failure at 13:25 and some five minutes later, a train traveling from Belgrade to Novi Sad smashed in to it, from the rear.

As Xinhua learned at the accident scene, the driver of the second train was seriously hurt by the collision and most of the injured passengers are from the first train that stopped in the tunnel.

"It was great luck that the driver of the first train did not block the wheels, otherwise much more passengers would be injured," Dragan Jovanovic, a guardian of the tunnel, who helped the evacuation, told Xinhua. "People were stuck in the last wagon, and we helped them to cross to next one and everybody was out in 30 minutes."

At the scene of the accident, 39 firefighters and medical staff of six ambulance units were involved in the rescue mission.