Train crash in Germany kills at least 9, injures 150

Two passenger trains crashed in southern Germany on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 80 – 17 of them critically.

The train crashed before 7 a.m. German transport minister Alexander Dobrindt spoke at a conference that one of the trains drilled into another.

The trains collided at high speed, and both drivers probably did not see each other until the last minute because the crash happened on a curve, said Dobrindt.

The company that operates the trains says they’re both partially derailed and wedged into each other.

Dozens of rescue teams were on site and helicopters took some of the casualties to nearby hospitals.

The nine confirmed dead so far include the two train drivers and two conductors.

The incident occurred at 6:48 am local time on Tuesday 09 February 2016, on a single-track line between Kolbermoor and Bad Aibling in the southern German state of Bavaria. “We need to determine immediately whether it was a technical problem or a human mistake”, Dobrindt said. The most seriously injured were taken to hospitals in Munich, Bavaria’s main city.

It added regional police said in a tweet that nine people had been killed and 100 injured.

Rescue and salvage crews are still working at the site of the crash near the town of Bad Aibling, roughly 40 miles southeast of Munich.

Philippa Oldham, the head of transport at London’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said it was still too early to say what had caused the crash, but that the signalling system would be a main point of focus.

Federal and state police, paramedics, the fire department, the lifeguard service and the Red Cross formed a rescue operation comprising more than 500 people, Dobrindt said.

“This is the biggest accident we have had in years in this region and we have many emergency doctors, ambulances and helicopters on the scene”, Sonntag said.

Three black boxes on the trains should help shed light on the accident, he said, adding that two had already been recovered, and the third should be found in the course of the day.

Train operator Bayerische Oberlandbahn said it had started a hotline for family and friends to check on passengers. He said it was “a lucky chance” that due to school holidays “considerably fewer people were in the trains than normal”.