At least 21 people were killed after a high-speed magnetic train
collided with another coach on Friday in northern Germany, local
reports said.
Fifteen bodies had so far been recovered from the wreckage,
police said, adding that 10 were seriously injured, Deutsche
Presse-Agentur said in a report.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on her way to the accident
site to check the situation and German President Horst Koehler has
extended his condolences to the casualties and their families.
German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee had postponed a
trip to China, according to Tiefensee's spokesman.
About 150 rescuers were trying to get to trapped passengers, but
the rescue work was not easy because the test track is built on
concrete stilts four meters above ground level, Deutsche
Presse-Agentura said in a report.
Some 25 people were on the driverless train, which was traveling
at 200 km per hour on a stretch of test track when it slammed into
a service coach on which there were at least five passengers, said
the report.
On local news N-TV, the wreckage of the train was seen hanging
half-way off the track and firefighters were using ladders to reach
the injured.
The cause for the accident was still under investigation.
Another local TV station, N 24, reported that the passengers
aboard the train were relatives of the workers who had built the
test track.
Magnetic trains, propelled by a linear induction motor, use
powerful magnets to allow it to float just above the tracks and
glide along without friction. Trains of this kind can reach 450 km
per hour.
In China, a fire broke out in an electrical storage compartment
aboard Shanghai's magnetic-levitation train as it was headed toward
the city's international airport on Aug. 11, generating large
amounts of smoke but causing no deaths or injuries.
The Shanghai system is the world's only commercially operating
maglev train.
(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2006)
