Locomotive on new Paris-Strasbourg high-speed line left partly submerged in canal near German border after derailment

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

At least ten people have been killed and several more injured after a train derailed and caught fire near Strasbourg, according to reports.

Another 32 people were injured, 12 of them seriously. French environment minister Ségolène Royal said at the scene that a further five were unaccounted for.

All those aboard the train were employees of national railway operator SNCF. The accident was caused by excessive speed, although it was too early to say why the train was travelling so quickly, the prefecture said.



The train ended up near a bridge in the water of a roughly 130-ft wide canal. A police team of divers, helicopters and tens of rescue vehicles were sent to the scene in response to the crash.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The train in the water of the canal near the bridge in Eckwersheim, near Strasbourg. Photograph: Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images

Reuters, citing local police and national railway company TGV, reported that the train was travelling on the new Paris-Strasbourg high-speed line on Saturday at Eckwersheim, near the German border.



Pictures from a Reuters photographer showed the locomotive partly submerged in a canal alongside the tracks with train parts lying broken and detached in a field. Medical units, including police divers, attended the scene.

The second section of the Paris-Strasbourg high-speed TGV line on which the crash happened is set to open for service in April 2016.

DNA said its reporter had been told that an initial assessment had put the death toll at five people. The paper reported that the crash was not thought to be linked to terrorism.