At least 10 people have died and scores have been injured – 50 seriously – after two commuter trains collided in southern Germany, police have said.
The crash happened near the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling at 6.48am on Tuesday. Several carriages overturned after the trains, which were travelling in opposite directions, collided head on.
Police said the death toll had risen to 10, with 50 severely injured and a further 100 carrying light injuries.
Federal police spokesman Stefan Brandl cautioned that the toll would change. He said: “The current number of dead and injured is a snapshot; this can and will change.”
The passengers were mostly commuters travelling between Munich and Rosenheim. Because of school holidays, many children who would normally take the trains were not on board, a local newspaper said.
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Rescue workers from across Bavaria and from Austria attended the scene, with the injured transported by helicopter and boat from the site.
Both train drivers died in the crash. There is no information so far as to why the trains were on the single-lane track travelling in opposite directions at the same time.
“The accident is a huge shock for us. We’re doing everything to help the passengers, their relatives and train personnel,” Bernd Rosenbusch, the head of the Bavarian overland train service BOB, told the local news portal Mangfall24.
The trains’ operator, Meridian, is part of French passenger transport firm Transdev, which is jointly owned by state-owned bank CDC and water and waste firm Veolia.
State-owned Deutsche Bahn is responsible for the track. The line has a system that makes a train brake automatically if it goes through a red light.
The line between Holzkirchen and Rosenheim was closed indefinitely with a replacement bus service in operation. A press conference was expected to take place at midday.
