10 killed in German train crash
Source: Agencies |
January 31, 2011, Monday
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A HEAD-ON collision between a cargo train and a passenger train killed 10 people and injured 23 others in eastern Germany, police said yesterday. Authorities say the death toll could yet rise.
The trains crashed in heavy fog late on Saturday on a single-line track near the village of Hordorf, close to Saxony-Anhalt's state capital Magdeburg.
"The crash was so strong that the passenger train was catapulted off the tracks onto a nearby field," Armin Friedrich, the police officer in charge of the rescue efforts, said at a news conference in Hordorf.
The front rows of the first passenger compartment were crushed and several seats were lying outside the train. The dark imprints of some of the bodies that had been removed could be seen on the white frosty ground next to the crash site. The noise of the collision was heard in Oschersleben village, more than seven kilometers away.
"We are still speechless and shocked by the images and the level of destruction," said Holger Hoevelmann, interior minister of Saxony-Anhalt.
The cause of the crash was under investigation, with experts looking at all possibilities, including technical failure and human error. Nearly 200 police and rescue workers were sent to the crash site. About 50 people were on the passenger train when the accident happened, police said.
Most of the injured were so severely hurt that doctors fear the death toll could rise, he added.
Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her condolences, saying she too was shocked.
"My thoughts are with the families of the victims," Merkel said in a statement.
The chancellor also thanked the many rescue workers for their immediate and tireless help.
Two bodies have been identified, but police did not want to release their identities before informing relatives. A phone hotline was activated for family members and friends, and psychologists and ministers were on the scene to counsel rescue personnel.
Police said they were having trouble identifying victims because most of them were not carrying ID with them.
In 2006, 23 people were killed in a train accident in Emsland in northern Germany and 101 people died in 1998, when a high-speed train derailed near Eschede in Lower-Saxony.
The trains crashed in heavy fog late on Saturday on a single-line track near the village of Hordorf, close to Saxony-Anhalt's state capital Magdeburg.
"The crash was so strong that the passenger train was catapulted off the tracks onto a nearby field," Armin Friedrich, the police officer in charge of the rescue efforts, said at a news conference in Hordorf.
The front rows of the first passenger compartment were crushed and several seats were lying outside the train. The dark imprints of some of the bodies that had been removed could be seen on the white frosty ground next to the crash site. The noise of the collision was heard in Oschersleben village, more than seven kilometers away.
"We are still speechless and shocked by the images and the level of destruction," said Holger Hoevelmann, interior minister of Saxony-Anhalt.
The cause of the crash was under investigation, with experts looking at all possibilities, including technical failure and human error. Nearly 200 police and rescue workers were sent to the crash site. About 50 people were on the passenger train when the accident happened, police said.
Most of the injured were so severely hurt that doctors fear the death toll could rise, he added.
Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her condolences, saying she too was shocked.
"My thoughts are with the families of the victims," Merkel said in a statement.
The chancellor also thanked the many rescue workers for their immediate and tireless help.
Two bodies have been identified, but police did not want to release their identities before informing relatives. A phone hotline was activated for family members and friends, and psychologists and ministers were on the scene to counsel rescue personnel.
Police said they were having trouble identifying victims because most of them were not carrying ID with them.
In 2006, 23 people were killed in a train accident in Emsland in northern Germany and 101 people died in 1998, when a high-speed train derailed near Eschede in Lower-Saxony.
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