GERMANY – Two passenger trains have collided near the town of Bad Aibling in the southern German state of Bavaria. At least ten people have been killed and 108 injured. The crash occurred shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday local time, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of the Bavarian capital of Munich.
German authorities said the cause of the accident was not clear. But questions were being asked over how an emergency braking system designed to prevent just such a collision failed.
Alexander Dobrindt, the German Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, said the front carriages of the trains were ripped in two after the vehicles collided while travelling at up to 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph), speaking at a press conference.
Black boxes from both trains had been recovered and are now being analyzed, which should show what went wrong, Dobrindt said.
Each train can hold up to 1,000 passengers and they are commonly used by children traveling to school. Fewer than 200 people in all were on board Tuesday, however because of regional holidays to celebrate Carnival.
About 700 emergency personnel from Germany and neighboring Austria were involved in the rescue effort, using about a dozen helicopters. Train operator Bayerische Oberlandbahn started a hotline for family and friends desperate to check on passengers.
Due to the difficult location of the crash site, boats and helicopters were used to transport many of the wounded across the Mangfall River before they were taken to hospital in ambulances.
Both drivers and conductors of the trains, which were travelling on the single-track railway line, were among the dead.
Dobrindt praised the rescue workers who took part in the rescue and salvage operations, saying that the fire brigade had reached the scene three minutes after receiving the alarm.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement Tuesday that she was shocked and saddened by the disaster. “My sympathies go out especially to the families of the nine people who lost their lives,” she said.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that at least one of the trains was not running to schedule. “Why they did not stick to the timetable, we don’t know. This has to be investigated,” he said.
“Why there was a deviation from the plan is unclear,” he said.
In 2011, 10 people were killed and 23 injured in a head-on collision of a passenger train and a cargo train on a single line track close to Saxony-Anhalt’s state capital of Magdeburg in eastern Germany.
Germany worst train accident took place in 1998, when a high speed ICE train crashed in the Northern German town of Eschede, killing 101 people and injuring more than 80.
