By Stine Jacobsen and Soren Jeppesen
COPENHAGEN, April 23 (Reuters) – Two local trains collided head-on north of the Danish capital Copenhagen on Thursday, injuring 17 people, five of them critically, emergency services said.
Two yellow and grey trains were seen at the site, both with visible damage to the front and facing each other in a wooded area, with rescue services describing “chaotic” scenes inside the carriages.
“The two trains collided head-on, causing large damage to them and sending broken glass flying everywhere,” fire and rescue service leader Christoffer Buhl Martekilde told reporters.
EARLY MORNING CRASH
A police spokesperson said it was too early to say what had caused the crash, adding there would be an extensive investigation.
A total of 38 people are believed to have been on board the two trains at the time of the crash, which occurred shortly before 6:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), the police said.
Emergency services scrambled 18 vehicles and 47 rescue workers to the crash site. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he had contacted acting Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to offer assistance.
The incident happened on a train line linking the towns of Hillerod and Kagerup, police said.
“There are injuries among the passengers. Everyone is out of the trains, so no one is trapped… Large resources have been dispatched to the scene,” a spokesperson told Reuters earlier.
The injured have since been transported away from the scene of the accident in ambulances and helicopters, the fire department said on X.
Denmark’s worst railway disaster this century occurred in 2019, when a high-speed train hit an obstacle on a bridge during a storm, killing eight people and injuring many more in what police said was a difficult rescue operation.
While such accidents are rare in Denmark, one person was killed and several others were injured in 2025 when a train hit a vehicle and derailed in the south of the country.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, Soren Jeppesen, Vera Dvorakova and Tom Little in Copenhagen, and Jesus Calero in Gdansk; writing by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Gareth Jones)
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