German authorities were on Tuesday investigating how two commuter trains collided head-on, leaving at least 10 dead and dozens injured, despite having been fitted with automatic braking systems to prevent such accidents.
German media reports said Wednesday that human error was likely to blame for the high-speed crashnear the southern spa town of Bad Aibling, when one of the trains sliced into the other and ripped a hole in its side.
But German police rejected the reports as "pure speculation". "Discard that, we reject that," a spokesman told local broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Newspaper group RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschand (RND), citing sources close to the investigation, said a signalling station worker had manually disactivated the automatic signalling system to let the first train – which was running late – go past. The second train then forged ahead on the same track in the opposite direction, before the first was able to split off where the line divides into two.
The Bild newspaper reported that manually disabling the signalling would have disactivated the automatic braking systems.
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