DHAKA: At least nine people were killed and scores more injured, police say, after two passenger trains collided in the German state of Bavaria.

The head-on crash happened near Bad Aibling, a spa town about 60km south-east of Munich.

The trains’ operator said both trains had partially derailed and were wedged into each other.

Emergency teams, some winched in by helicopter, worked for hours to free casualties from the wreckage.

Regional police said in a tweet (in German) that nine people had been killed and 100 injured, 50 of them seriously.

The drivers of both trains and two train guards were among those killed, regional broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk said, quoting police.

The cause of the collision is not yet known.

German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who visited the scene, said it was a ‘horrifying sight’.

‘The drivers’ cabs of both trains are wedged into each other. One side of one train is completely torn open,’ he told a news conference, reports the BBC.

‘The other train bored into it. Obviously both trains crashed into each other at high velocity. We suspect that both trains were traveling at around 100km/h.’

He added, ‘The site is on a bend so we have to surmise that both train drivers had no visual contact before the crash and therefore crashed into each other largely without braking’.

BDST: 1826 HRS, FEB 09, 2016
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** Several killed in Germany train crash