11 dead in Bad Aibling train crash

One more person succumbed to his injuries in this week's train crash in Bad Aibling, bringing the death toll to 11 persons. Police identified the tenth dead person as a 38-year-old man from the Spree-Neisse region in Brandenburg. The other nine people were men between the ages of 24 and 59, all from the Bavarian regions of Rosenheim and Traunstein.

Police were still trying to figure out the reason behind the crash. "We have two aspects which we are investigating: the technical and the human side," a police spokesman told journalists. "If one were to conclude that there was no sign of technical failure, then the investigation would concentrate on the human aspect," he added.

Authorities were also looking into two black boxes that were unearthed from the area where the accident took place and search was on for a third black box, possibly hidden in the debris.

Rescue workers continued clearing the scene of the accident through Thursday. Police said the job had to be done carefully because the two trains' wedged portions were under a lot of tension and workers could be injured by projectiles from the debris.

The company's officials said that they first cleared the last parts of the two trains, which suffered the least damaged. Two cranes with a carrying capacity of 160 and 60 tons were employed for the purpose. According to the Deutsche Bahn, rescue work could last at least until Friday. The tracks would also need to be repaired once the space was cleared.

The accident occurred on Tuesday, when two regional trains with around 150 passengers collided head on in Bad Aibling in Upper Bavaria. The high-intensity collision caused the two trains to wedge into one another, making it extremely difficult for rescue workers to clear the site.

mg/jil (AFP, dpa)