Several people hit and dragged by train in Germany, one killed

BERLIN: Several young people were struck by a train on Thursday on a railway line in the western German town of Recklinghausen, police said, and local media outlets reported they were dragged along by a freight train for several hundred meters (yards).

Police declined to give further details but media reports said some 35 firemen and rescue workers had been deployed to the accident site, near a former freight yard, and that rescue teams were searching the track bed and using drones to look for victims.

A child was killed and another was seriously injured after they were hit by a train, local authorities said.

Bild newspaper said the victims were dragged by a freight train for several hundred meters (yards).

"It's horrible. Children and trains and at such a young age, it's just horrible what happened here and one can only hope the parents will have the strength to overcome this great misfortune," Herbert Reul, the interior minister in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told journalists at the scene.

"Why, how come, these are all questions that no one can yet answer and wouldn't solve anything," Reul said.