Seventh-day Adventist leaders in Tanzania are calling for the prayers of the worldwide Adventist community in the aftermath of a train crash June 24 in which 51 church members were killed. The 48 women and three men were part of a 360-strong group of Adventists traveling home from a weekend women’s ministries conference in eastern Tanzania. In all, more than 280 people were killed in the crash, Tanzania’s worst train disaster.

“This tragedy has shocked us,” says Pardon Mwansa, president of the Adventist Church in Eastern Africa. “We haven’t yet begun recovery because the impact has been so traumatic.” Mwansa expresses his deep appreciation for the messages of condolence and support that have been streaming in from Adventists around the world.

Adventist pastors have been on site to offer comfort to relatives coming to identify victims at the make-shift morgue at Dodoma’s sports stadium, and volunteers have worked to help ensure that survivors receive the assistance they need.

“Our major involvement in helping all of the people in the hospital—not just Adventists—has been to cook food and supply this [to patients],” says Pastor Geoffrey Mbwana, president of the church in Tanzania. “We have provided accommodation to those released from the hospital and have assisted them to travel home. We are supplying clean water to the hospital, soap, tooth brushes and toothpaste, and some sandals for the sick to use.” He says local church members at Dodoma and Mpwapwa, closest to the crash site, “have worked around the clock and have given tremendous support.”

A team of some 30 Adventist doctors, nurses and pastors arrived on the crash site in the days following the disaster, and have been helping care for the hundreds of injured.

Last weekend, local church leaders began visiting church centers in Tanzania that were hardest hit by the tragedy, meeting with bereaved families in Mwanza, Magu, Shinyanga, Maswa, and Bariadi. With the assistance of the government, the bodies of all the Adventists who died have been returned to their home towns for burial.

The Adventists on the train had been traveling home from the first major women’s ministries conference ever held in Tanzania. More than 1,400 women had gathered at Morogoro for worship, fellowship and training. “The meeting was a great success, and the women left the meetings with great zeal for ministry,” says Mbwana. Despite the tragedy, Mbwana says, there will continue to be strong involvement of women in the work of the church in Tanzania. “Just keep praying for us,” he says, “because God is sure with us.”

Faulty brakes have been cited as the cause of the train crash. The train, carrying some 1,200 people, picked up speeds of up to 220 kilometers per hour as it traveled backwards for more than 20 minutes before colliding with a freight train.