High tech German magnetic train crash kills 21

Lathen (Germany), Sept 23: A high tech magnetic train carrying 29 people smashed into a maintenance vehicle on a test run in northern Germany yesterday, killing 21 people, authorities said.

The elevated Transrapid, one of the world's fastest trains, collided with a maintenance truck and its two man crew at a speed of at least 200 km per hour on the track in the Emsland district of Germany near the Dutch border.

The state prosecutor's office said the bodies of 15 passengers had been pulled from the wreckage and 10 injured in the collision had been taken to hospital. Police said they believed six other bodies remained inside the train.

''There is no hope that the others survived,'' a police spokesman said.

The crash occurred at around 10 a.m. (1330 IST) on a 32-km figure-of-eight circuit built as a test facility for the train, which floats on a magnetic cushion.

Television pictures showed debris from the crash, including what appeared to be parts of the roof and upholstery from the interior of the train, strewn for around 300 metres along the sides of the elevated track.

The train, which rides on a track supported by concrete stilts around five metres above ground, was not derailed in the accident, officials said, but its height made rescue difficult.

The costly train, which set a speed record of 450 kph in 1993, was developed by Transrapid International, a joint venture between German industrial firms Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp.

REUTERS