At least five people were killed and seven injured after a high speed train came off the tracks as it crossed a bridge and plunged into a canal in France, according to local reports.
Photographs of the wreckage show its carriages half submerged in the water outside Eckwersheim, Strasbourg.
Rescue workers were seen approaching the mangled train on rubber dinghies and tending to the wounded by the side of the canal.
The train derailed because it was travelling at ‘excessive speed’ but it is not known whether the final death toll will rise, it was reported. Technicians were said to be on board the train when it crashed.
SNCF, France’s national state owned railway, refused to provide further details. The train crashed on the new high speed line between Paris and Strasbourg which has never been used before.
The second section of the Paris-Strasbourg high-speed TGV line, on which the crash happened, is set to open for service in April 2016.
It derailed while crossing a bridge and its carriages fell into the Marne-Rhine canal, witnesses have said.
There have been no connections made to last night’s terror attacks in the French capital, Paris, where at least 127 people were killed.
