The twisted wreckage of a high-speed German passenger train was strewn across a track near Hamburg last night after one of Europe's worst rail disasters left up to 120 feared dead and hundreds more injured.
As darkness fell over Eschede, in Lower Saxony, the frantic pace of rescue work gave way to a chilly melancholy silence. Hundreds of rescue workers were still struggling to uncover the last carriages of the inter-city express which crashed at 125 m.p.h. in northern Germany The hi-tech, high-speed express was five hours into its morning journey from Munich and 40 minutes short of its destination in Hamburg when it came off the rails just outside Eschede at 11.10 a.m. Emergency services said hope of finding more survivors was ebbing away. "Anybody who is still in there is dead," said one rescue worker.
By nightfall the rescue teams had retrieved 70 bodies and told the transport minister, Mr Matthias Wissman, to expect a death toll of more than 100, surpassing Germany's worst rail disaster when 102 died in a crash a month after the end of the second World War in June 1945.
"I've experienced quite a bit in my operations in my time," said fireman, Mr Andreas Koch. "But I've never seen anything like this."
"I had to collect body parts, legs and arms from men, women and children," said Mr Walter Stroettmann, another rescue worker. "This shakes me to the core."
The precise cause of the catastrophe remained unclear last night and Mr Wissman ordered an urgent inquiry. "The cause of this terrible misfortune has to be cleared up promptly and thoroughly," he said.
Reports that the crash was caused by a car that careered off a flyover and onto the track were discounted by a local police official.
Mr Joachim Lindenberg said the car in question was a railways' vehicle sitting on the overpass when the train crashed into its concrete supports and brought the structure tumbling on to the carriages.
The locomotive separated from the body of the train and was relatively unharmed.
The driver said later he saw no obstacles on the track but felt a jolt as he passed under the flyover.
"We're still puzzled as to the cause of the accident," said Mr Klaus Rathert, head of the district council of Celle.
Mr Peter Muenschwander, of the board of Deutsche Bahn, the national railways, said that three investigations were being conducted but it remained unclear why the train had come off the rails.
The rescue operation moved swiftly into place as soon as news came in around noon of a serious train crash. Most local people heard the crash but few had any idea what it was.
Ms Renate Otto was drinking coffee with her daughter Janine when she heard a loud rumbling sound.
"The dishes started to shake on the table and it sounded as if a huge load of stones was falling down a hill," she said.
Ms Otto and her daughter immediately ran to the scene where they saw tangled metal, rubble and what looked like a series of sandhills. I thought who'd make a sandhill like that? And then I saw an arm."
First reports put the death toll at 20 with more than 100 wounded. But just before 5 o'clock news came in that rescue workers had found a number of carriages buried deep beneath the rubble. Suddenly the death toll was over 60 and was heading for a 100.
"Children were crawling out of the wreckage looking for their parents. And so many young people were lying dead, mangled. It was just terrible," said Ms Christina Meier, a Red Cross volunteer.
Helicopters whirred over the scene all day, swooping down to collect each new batch of casualties to be ferried to hospitals throughout northern Germany.
Huge cranes attempted to lift the twisted metal of crumpled railway carriages, while orange clad emergency workers pushed away the rubble.
Too often they found the dead or dying. And as the day progressed the undertakers were in greater demand than the ambulances.
The local state government promised immediate financial help and thousands of people queued to give blood following a Red Cross appeal.
Flags throughout Germany will fly at half-mast today and experts hope to establish the cause of the accident soon.
