Five dead in German train accident

One day after a serious train accident near the southern German town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, another body has been recovered taking the death toll to five people.

The recovery of the dead was extremely difficult because one of the overturned wagons which had become wedged in place had to be lifted first. Initial attempts to carry out the lift had failed.

According to reports, more than 40 people were injured in the accident on Friday, three of them seriously. Several people were still missing on Saturday.

Police said earlier that the number of those not accounted for is in the single figures, but they could not exclude the possibility that more victims were lying underneath the wreckage.

On Friday afternoon several carriages of the regional train derailed in the village of Burgrain next to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the way to the Bavarian state capital Munich.

The carriages slid down an embankment and came to rest by the side of a main road. The search for bodies has proven difficult as two attempts to lift the capsized carriages failed.

A police spokesperson said that a crane capable of lifting up to 120 tons was expected to arrive at the site of the accident during the day.

There were no new findings on the cause of the accident on Saturday. According to the police, the train driver was questioned. However, the police did not say what he had said.

There were 140 passengers in the train; Several children were among the injured. Some of those who were badly injured had to undergo emergency surgery.

The bodies of three victims had initially been recovered from the wreckage, and a fourth victim died on the way to the hospital on Friday. The fifth death was announced on Saturday.

It was one of the worst train accidents in Germany in recent years.

Bavaria's Premier Markus Soder visited the accident site on Saturday and spoke of an "inconceivable event." Such an accident is always a shock and a "stab in the heart."

As of now, the dead are four women and one male, but nothing has been officially said about the age of the victims. When asked, the police did not confirm media reports that the fifth dead person was a student.