6 killed in train accident on Danish bridge

At least six people were killed and 16 injured in a train accident on the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark on Wednesday, the police said.

The accident involving a freight train and a passenger train took place during a heavy storm in the morning on the lower section of the bridge linking the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen, a police spokeswoman said.

Emergency services reportedly struggled in the bad weather to reach the passenger train, which came to a stop on the bridge.

A spokesman for brewing company Carlsberg told CNN that Carlsberg beer was being transported on the freight train over the bridge.

"The train was carrying our goods apparently, but we do not transport our own goods in Denmark," said Kasper Elbjorn from Carlsberg, which has its headquarters in Copenhagen. The beer was carried by Deutsche Bahn Cargo Scandinavia, he said.

No cause for the accident was established yet but the two trains may have had contact, a police official said.

"There was a loud crash and the windows started smashing onto our heads," passenger Heidi Langberg Zumbusch told Danish broadcaster DR. "We flew down onto the floor and then the train stopped."

She said fellow passengers told her the side of the carriage in front of theirs had been ripped off.

The bridge was closed to both cars and trains towards the island of Funen, but car traffic towards Zealand was later reopened.

Tens of thousands of vehicles cross the bridge every day and the storm had already caused several accidents on the road section earlier on Tuesday.

--IANS

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