German police say at least nine - and possibly more - people died when two trains collided in southern Bavaria.
Some 18 people are in a serious condition and 90 have lesser injuries, but local officials say the death toll could yet rise.
The alarm went out at 6.48am close to Bad Aibling, near the Austrian border, on the train line between Holzkirchen and Rosenheim.
Both trains involved were derailed and wedged together in the head-on collision.
“We do not know if more dead will be found in the wedged-together trains, it’s terrible,” said Joachim Hermann, Bavaria’s interior minister at a press conference.
Dozens of ambulances and emergency teams are on the scene, with helicopters flying injured passengers to hospital. Rescue teams on the scene added that the serious injuries of some passengers means a higher death toll cannot be ruled out.
Most of the victims were likely to be commuters, according to locals, with no school children on the trains because of the winter holidays.
So far police have said nothing about the cause of the crash on the single-track line. Images from the scene show two blue and yellow privately-operated Meridian train lying on their side with smashed windows.
“The accident is a huge shock for us,” said Bernd Rosenbusch, chief executive of the Bayeriscen Oberlandbahn (BOB), operator of the trains, thanking rescue teams for their quick work. “We were on the scene quickly to get an overview of the serious collision.”
