A broken wheel was almost certainly the cause of Wednesday's rail disaster in the northern German town of Eschede, experts said yesterday. It remained unclear whether the damage was the result of metal fatigue or a fault on the track.
The train appears to have become partly derailed about six kilometres south of Eschede, approximately two minutes before it crashed into an overhead bridge. The engine and the front three carriages sped beneath the bridge unharmed but the fourth carriage hit a pillar and the train jack-knifed, with the remaining carriages piling into one another.
The death toll rose to 98 yesterday after rescue workers removed the final carriage, a dining car, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed bridge and two more victims died of their injuries.
Nineteen of the victims have been identified so far but a pathologist said yesterday that some are so badly mutilated that, even with dental records, identification will prove extremely difficult.
The authorities set up a reception centre for worried relatives in Eschede, offering counselling as well as practical support and accommodation.
Rescue workers were also receiving counselling yesterday and psychologists predicted that the shock of seeing the terrible sight of dozens of dead and injured people would take its toll on those involved as soon as the rescue work ended. Some emergency workers toiled at the crash site for more than 40 hours without a break, refusing to rest until it was certain that no further survivors would be found.
Rail timetables throughout Germany were in chaos yesterday after railway officials recalled 60 high-speed trains similar to the Inter-City Express involved in the crash. The trains were expected to return to service over the weekend following a thorough technical inspection.
The maximum speed of all other high-speed trains has been temporarily reduced from 175 m.p.h. to 100 m.p.h.
Travellers were delayed by up to two hours as the cancellation of high-speed trains had a knock-on effect on other connections.
The Inter-City Express is Germany's most luxurious, high-tech train, with automatic detection systems for everything from blocked lavatories and empty coffee machines to faulty air conditioning. But it has no warning system for broken wheels or derailment.
A spokesman for Germany's federal railway authority confirmed yesterday that investigators were focusing on a broken steel tyre on the first carriage of the train.
Part of the tyre, which forms the wheel's rolling surface, was found jammed into the chassis of the carriage.
Some experts blamed the design of the bridge for the high death toll in Wednesday's crash, suggesting that the derailment might have been harmless if one of the carriages had not struck a pillar.
