A high-speed train carrying 246 passengers derailed after colliding with a lorry in northern France, authorities said on Tuesday.
The driver of the TGV train was killed and 16 passengers were injured, two of them seriously, officials said.
For reasons as yet unknown, the TGV – which was travelling from Dunkirk to Paris – collided shortly before 7 am (0500 GMT) at a level crossing in the town of Bully-les-Mines with the trailer of a lorry carrying a mobile bridge for the army.
The crash occurred outside the French high-speed network. Nevertheless, the train was travelling at approximately 160 kilometres per hour. Following the violent collision, the train only came to a halt hundreds of metres further on.
The level crossing barriers were working perfectly, said rail chief Jean Castex, who visited the scene alongside Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.
Rescue workers were deployed in large numbers, and the lorry driver was taken into police custody.
Photos shared by an official from the rail union showed the train’s generator car badly damaged and off the tracks. The union official said that only a week earlier a heavy army transport had become stuck at a level crossing.
According to French media, the train driver was a father of four who was about to retire. Castex paid tribute to him as an extremely experienced railworker.
Firefighters and police remove a person from the wreckage of a TGV train at a railroad crossing between Bethune and Lens in Bully-les-Mines. The high-speed train, carrying several hundred passengers, collided with a tractor-trailer in northern France and derailed. According to preliminary police reports, the train driver was killed and 27 passengers were injured, as reported by the TF1 network. Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/dpa