BERLIN
At least 10 people were killed and nearly 100 injured in a head-on crash between two passenger trains in southern Germany on Tuesday.
Bavarian police raised the death toll to 10, as one of the passengers died at the hospital, hours after the accident near Bad Aibling, 60 km (37 miles) southeast of Munich.
Seventeen people were seriously injured in the crash and 63 others had slight injuries. Rescue teams continued their search for one missing person in the wreckage.
Federal Minister of Transport Alexander Dobrindt said it was not immediately clear whether a technical failure or human error caused the crash.
After a visit to the scene, Dobrindt told reporters that trains traveling in opposite directions collided without breaking, despite the fact that the trains are equipped with an automatic brake system.
“Two of the three black boxes in these trains have been recovered. Based on these black boxes, we will be able to analyze technical conditions before or at the time of the accident,” he said.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann described the accident near the Austrian border as “one of the biggest train accidents in recent German history”, according to broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Several passengers were airlifted to hospitals while others were taken by boat across the River Mangfall to awaiting ambulances.
Robert Kopp, police chief of Upper Bavaria, said the tragic accident could have been more catastrophic, had it happened on a busy day. Trains were not crowded on Tuesday due to the local carnival holiday in Bavaria.
The deadliest train accident in Bavaria’s recent history happened in 1975, when two express trains crashed, killing 41 people near the small town of Warngau.
