Two trains travelling at high speed crashed head-on Tuesday, in one of Germany’s deadliest accidents in years, with one slicing the other apart, ripping a large gash in its side.
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The two regional trains crashed before 7 a.m. on the single line that runs near Bad Aibling, in Bavaria, and that several wagons overturned, police spokesman Stefan Sonntag told The Associated Press.
On the investigation front, the German transport ministry said both the government’s train accident investigation office and local prosecutors are looking into the cause of the crash.
Authorities are trying to determine why multiple safety measures failed Tuesday morning, allowing two trains to travel on the same single-line track and smash into each other.
Newspaper group RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschand (RND), citing sources close to the investigation, said a signalling station worker had manually deactivated the automatic signalling system to let the first train – which was running late – go past. Most recently, a train engineer and a passenger were killed in May when a train hit a vehicle in western Germany, and another 20 people were injured. “They are looking at the black boxes, they are examining what happened on the tracks, they are speaking to the witnesses and the train dispatchers”.
“We need to find out know what happened, if the cause of the crash was based on the technology or human failure”, he said.
“Trains are the safest means of transportation”, he said.
Some 17 injured are still in serious condition, but all are expected to survive, dpa said.
Sonntag said that the scene of the accident on the tracks between Rosenheim and Holzkirchen was so confusing that he did not have any specific numbers of injured and dead yet.
A video showing the immediate aftermath of the train crash in Germany that took place yesterday has emerged. Though the first rescue crews were on the scene in minutes, it took hours for all survivors to be airlifted and shuttled by boat across the river to waiting ambulances.
“At the moment we will have to wait (for the result of the investigation)”. Train operator Bayerische Oberlandbahn started a hotline for family and friends desperate to check on passengers.
The company said the safety system had been checked last week.
Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the trains and track had been fitted with an automatic brake system that was introduced across Germany after 10 people died in 2011 near Magdeburg when a train driver drove through two red signals.
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The trains, carrying about 100 people in all, crashed at high speed on a 6 km (four-mile) stretch of track between the spa town of Bad Aibling and Kolbermoor, near the Austrian border. Grieshaber reported from Berlin.
