accident
Many injured in train crash in Slovakia
Police officers stand at the scene of the train crash near Strecno in northern Slovakia. Photo: Erika Ïurèová/TASR/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A train accident near Garmisch-Partenkirchen with several deaths has just triggered vibrations, when there is also an accident on the tracks in Slovakia.
Many people were injured when a passenger train collided with a locomotive in Slovakia. The television station TV Markiza initially estimated the number of injuries on Friday evening at up to a hundred, later at around 50.
The Ministry of Transport in Bratislava and the state railway company told the TASR news agency that the locomotive had crashed into the broken-down train that it was supposed to be helping. Information on the number of injuries was not initially given.
The police called on motorists to avoid the area around the scene of the accident near the northern Slovakian municipality of Strecno in order to facilitate access for fire brigades and rescue vehicles. The Ministry of Transport announced that Minister of Transport Andrej Dolezal was on his way to the scene of the accident. The collision happened near the important railway junction Vrutky, where the railway lines from the interior to Bratislava and those to the Czech Republic meet.