A high-speed train in France has derailed near the German border in France’s Alsace region, killing 10 people and injuring 37 more.
The TGV (the French acronym for Train à Grande Vitesse) was in its test run dashing at the speed of 350 kph (217 mph) from Paris to Strasbourg when it was derailed and caught fire in Eckwersheim, located 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of Strasbourg in northeastern France.
According to Dominique-Nicolas Jane, a senior official in the Alsace region, the crash occurred over a bridge due to “excessive speed” but police said the cause of the accident has not been determined.
French Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Marie-Ségolène Royal said that all the passengers aboard were technicians with the country’s national state-owned railway company, SNCF.
Twelve of the wounded were in critical condition while the rest were “still trapped under the carriages.”
Search and rescue teams, equipped with sniffer dogs, were set to continue work throughout the night.
The ill-fated train was meant to go into service in spring 2016, as part of the next generation of TGV trains.
The crash has been the first fatal accident of TGVs since their launch in 1981.
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