ISTANBUL

Rail transport across the EU tanked in the second quarter of the year amid the restrictive measures taken by its 27 member countries against the novel coronavirus, the bloc's statistical body said Thursday.

Year-on-year, rail transport figures saw the steepest drop in Ireland with 94%, followed by France, Spain and Luxembourg -- all of which posted declines of 78%, according to Eurostat.

Except for the Netherlands, which reported only a slight decline of 0.2%, the least severe drops were in Bulgaria with 37%, Romania with 47% and Czechia with 48%.

Turkey also posted a 78% decline in rail transport over the same period.

The decreases are slightly higher when accounting for the length of passenger journeys, Eurostat added.

"The decrease in passenger-kilometers was largest in Ireland (-95%), followed by Spain (-87%), Italy (-85%), France (-80%) and Luxembourg (-78%)."

The COVID-19 pandemic, which appeared initially in China last December, infected over 48.1 million people globally and killed more than a million patients.

It had impacts across numerous economic sectors and activities, especially tourism, travel and transportation.