Germany
Cologne train crash deaths revised to 8

The death toll in Sunday's train crash near Cologne has been lowered to eight.

photo : BBC

Gallery Pictures of the train crash at Cologne on Sunday February 6 2000. Missing Passengers It has been a feature in recent rail accidents that the news media has carried reports of so called "missing" passengers. One reason for this and a major headache for emergency service is that the total number of people travelling on a train is often not known. It would be difficult and unwieldy for trains to have an airline-style passenger manifest for people board and alight from trains at intermediate stations all along its route. As tickets are often valid for a particular journey or route rather than a specific train, people can change their travel plans at the last minute.

According to officials, the reason for the confusion over the number of deaths was the "mangled state of the wreckage".

Ninety-six people were also injured. According to local sources at least 10 of these have life threatening injuries. Twenty-two people who are thought to have been on the train remain accounted for.

The train had been en-route from Amsterdam to Basle in Switzerland and was carrying about 300 people. It was travelling through Brühl station, near Cologne when it became derailed. The accident occurred at about 00:13 local time as the train was negotiating a series of crossovers.

The locomotive of the 9 car train plunged down an embankment and crashed into a house. None of the occupants were hurt. The train driver also survived. One of the coaches narrowly missed another house. Another coach was thrown onto its side and one was crushed against canopy support pillars on the station platform.

Although there is no official explanation of the cause of the derailment, data from the locomotive's event recorder (black box) show that the train had acelerated to 120 km/h despite a speed restriction of 40 km/h being in force in the area.

Web sources:

Officials Lower German Train Death Toll to 8
Fox News 07/02/2000

German train crash kills nine
BBC On-line 06/02/2000

Seven Die in German Train Crash
Yahoo 06/02/2000

German Train Crash Kills Seven, Injures 105
Excite 06/02/2000