Several Dead and More Than 100 Injured in German Train Crash

At least eight people have died after two trains collided head-on in the southern German state of Bavaria on Tuesday. Around 150 more people were injured, including 10 who are in a very serious condition, a police spokesman said.

The crash occurred at 6.48am local time close to the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling. Dozens of rescue teams were on site and helicopters carried some of the injured people to nearby hospitals, while the area was sealed off.

The spokesman said officials had opened an investigation to establish what caused the crash of the two local passenger trains, which were operated by Meridian.

Meridian is part of French passenger transport firm Transdev, which is jointly owned by state-owned bank CDC and water and waste firm Veolia. It runs train, tram, and bus networks in 19 countries and had revenues of 6.6 billion euros ($7.4bn) in 2014.

State-owned Deutsche Bahn is responsible for the track. The line has a system that makes a train brake automatically if it goes through a red light.

Federal police spokesman Stefan Brandl earlier cautioned that rescue operations would be very difficult, because the stretch of line on which the two trains crashed is sandwiched between a forest on one side and the Mangfall river on the other, according to the Guardian.

Matthias Knott, another spokesman for the German federal police in Bavaria, said rescue personnel were still attempting to get passengers out of the trains, France 24 reported. Several carriages reportedly overturned with the force of the crash. 

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