A head-on collision between two local trains north of Copenhagen left five people critically injured and 13 others hospitalized Thursday morning.
9:00 AM
Two local trains collided head-on in Denmark on Thursday morning, injuring at least 18 people, five of them critically, authorities said.
The crash occurred at a level crossing near Hillerød, a town approximately 19 miles northwest of Copenhagen in the North Zealand area. Emergency services received reports of the collision at about 6:30 a.m. local time. A total of 37 to 38 people were aboard the two trains at the time of the accident, according to police.
Photographs from the scene showed both trains with visible damage to their fronts, positioned head-to-head in a wooded area. Tim Ole Simonsen of the Greater Copenhagen fire department said all injured passengers had been transported to hospital by ambulance or army helicopter. Emergency workers deployed 18 vehicles to the scene, including 12 ambulances and an army helicopter.
Morten Kaare Pedersen, a regional police official, said authorities could not immediately determine the cause of the collision. "We can't provide any details for now about the cause of the accident," Pedersen told reporters. North Zealand police said technical investigations were underway but would not immediately comment on the nature of the collision. The trains had been travelling at speed, though exact speeds were not yet known, police said.
Anders Damm-Hejmdal, the chief doctor for the capital region's Emergency Response Unit, noted that the official count of injured people could still change as medical assessments continued.
Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's acting prime minister, issued a statement saying she was "very moved by the terrible train accident on the Gribskov line this morning." She told TV2 that several people were in critical condition and said her thoughts were with the injured, their relatives, and everyone affected by the accident.
Local mayor Trine Egetved said she was deeply shaken by the accident. A Greater Copenhagen fire department spokesperson confirmed that everyone had been evacuated from both trains and that no one remained trapped.
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