A train hit a truck at a road crossing
in western Germany,
killing two people and injuring at least 20 others, police said, adding that
three of the injured were in severe condition.
Police spokesman Jochen Laschke said a regional train coming from the
city of Osnabrueck and heading to Ibbenbueren collided with a farm truck with a
tank full of manure. Laschke said the accident happened in a rural area near
Ibbenbueren, 440 kilometers west of Berlin.
According to the investigators on the scene, the truck got stuck when
trying to drive over the railway. The train crashed into the truck and came to
a stop 200 meters down the track. The
truck driver was not injured."The train was very crowded," Laschke said. "We got an
emergency call at 11:31 a.m. today and rescue team, firefighters and
psychologists from all over the region were activated to help."
The train was operated by a small private train company, Westfalenbahn,
and not by national train operator Deutsche Bahn. This comes barely a week, when
another train derailed and killed six people leaving 200 others with serious injuries
in Philadelphia on Tuesday night . Germany's worst train accident happened in 1998, when a high-speed
ICE train crashed in the northern German town of Eschede, killing 101 people
and injuring more than 80.