10 killed in German train crash, toll could rise

[spinbaby]

Source: AP

BERLIN – A head-on collision between a cargo and a passenger train killed 10 people and injured 23 others in eastern Germany, police said Sunday. Authorities believe the death toll could rise in one of the country's worst train accidents.

The trains crashed in heavy fog late Saturday on a single-line track near the village of Hordorf, close to Saxony-Anhalt's state capital Magdeburg. It's about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Berlin, Germany's capital.

"The crash was so strong that the passenger train was catapulted off the tracks onto a nearby field," Armin Friedrich, the police officer in charge of the rescue efforts, said at a news conference in Hordorf.

The front rows of the first passenger compartment were crushed and several seats were lying outside the train. The dark imprints of some of the bodies that had been removed could be seen on the white frosty ground next to the crash site. The noise of the collision was heard in Oschersleben village, more than four miles (about seven kilometers) away.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110130/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_train_crash