E-Paper
At least 25 killed in Germany train crash
Ten others were injured when a high-tech train travelling at speed crashed into a service vehicle on an elevated test track in northwestern Germany.
Twenty-five people were killed and 10 injured when a high-tech train travelling at speed crashed into a service vehicle on an elevated test track in northwestern Germany on Saturday, police said.
"We are working on the basis that there are no more victims," a police spokesman said.
Rescue workers managed to free all of the dead and injured from the wreckage of the Transrapid train, which is propelled by electro-magnetic force.
All of those hurt are in a serious condition and being treated in hospital.
The prosecutor's office in the city of Osnabrueck said the collision near the town of Lathen, a few kilometres (miles) from the border with the Netherlands, was the result of "human error".
A radio communication problem was possibly to blame for the collision.
The Transrapid was travelling at about 170 kms per hour on a concrete monorail track built on stilts some five metres above the ground at the time of the collision.
The service vehicle is used every day to clean the track but should not have been in operation at the same time as the train, officials said.
While the Transrapid train did not plunge off the track, the front of it derailed in the collision and was hanging over the edge, complicating efforts to recover the dead and injured.
The accident happened at 9:30 am. Around 400 rescue workers searched for the victims and the survivors with the help of sniffer dogs while firefighters were hoisted up to the train on cranes.
