Germany train crash: Two black boxes retrieved as death toll rises to 10

German rescue workers have managed to retrieve two out of three black boxes from the wreckage of two trains which collided earlier today (9 February) near Bad Aibling, in the state of Bavaria. The death toll from the head-on crash has risen to 10, while dozens more were injured in the incident.

Regional police said 17 people were seriously injured, while 80 people were wounded in total. Workers are continuing the search for the third black box in a bid to establish what happened on the single-track route between Rosenheim and Holzkirchen at around 7.00am local time (6.00am GMT).

"There's a horrific picture to be seen there," Germany's transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt said at a press conference as he described the crash site. "It was shocking to see how both trains had smashed into each other. One of the trains had bored into the other."

Dobrindt said the black box is likely to hold the answer to the cause of the accident, and added that the trains "must have been travelling at very high speed". As the collision took place on a bend, the transport minister said that the drivers had no visibility of one another before the accident.

Joe Adediran, an electrical engineer and passenger on board one train told the BBC: "At the first station, this train normally has to wait for five minutes or so for the opposite one to arrive. After a while, we started to move on to the next station without waiting for the opposite train".

A total of 150 people were on board the commuter trains, which partially derailed and became wedged between a canal and a wooded area. Some 500 workers took part in the rescue operation to free trapped survivors. Both train drivers were killed in the high-speed disaster.