A survivor of yesterday's train crash in near Eschedhe, Germany, said "heavy rattling" shocked passengers about 10 minutes before the derailment. The rattling subsided, then restarted a moment before coaches jumped the tracks at 125 m.p.h. and jack-knifed into the base of an overpass.
"I held on and ducked down because you had the feeling you'd be thrown through the air," said Mr Wolf-Ruediger Schliebener, a passenger from a rear coach.
"Thank God, it came to a standstill," Mr Schliebener said. "Then I saw in the distance to the front where all the cars were chaotically laying all over."
Then, he heard the screaming.
Several coaches had wedged together, some sticking up at various angles and others buried under the overpass, which had collapsed.
Mr Schliebener said "10 minutes before [the crash] there was an uncomfortable rattling and I had the feeling that maybe something was lying on the tracks".
"People looked at each other shocked, and then it was as if: `That's over now'."
But then, he said, the rattling "started up again".
Ms Hannelore Domkewitz saw the train speed past from her kitchen window where she stood peeling potatoes. She had just a moment to reflect that it was moving faster than usual. "Then there was a loud boom, a dust cloud, and then silence," she said.
The silence didn't last long. There were screams from the line. Mrs Domkewitz ran 100 yards towards the mangled wreckage of Germany's worst train crash for more than three decades.
People with bloodied hands staggered towards her.
Behind them was a ghostly scene of passenger carriages wedged into each other, some sticking up several yards into the air and others buried under a collapsed overpass.
Ms Domekewitz ran back to her home to get sheets and blankets to cover the injured and dead. "But there were also survivors who went by with their luggage. They were all in shock," she said, her voice breaking.
Neighbour, Mr Mark Draeger (20), heard it too. "It was like an explosion! Yet very different, because it was a terrible crushing sound," he said.
Within an hour, the tracks were swarming with rescue workers and helicopters were carrying the injured to hospitals. Residents further along the tracks rushed to help.
German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, shaken by the news of at least 100 deaths in the accident, decided to hurry home last night, shortly after arriving in Italy for talks with Italian Premier, Mr Romano Prodi.
"So many dead . . . It's a tragedy. Excuse me, but I must return home right away," said Dr Kohl, his face tight, with Mr Prodi at his side, as the two leaders went to meet over dinner in a restaurant outside Bologna.
The cause of the accident remained unclear. The Lower Saxony state Interior Ministry spokesman, Mr Frank Lukashweski, confirmed 100 bodies had been recovered and up to 300 had been injured.
Mr Klaus Rathert, the chief regional rescue co-ordinator, told a news conference the front locomotive apparently decoupled from the passenger coaches, causing them to derail and jack-knife into the overpass.
The front locomotive travelled at least 500 yards from the scene of the derailment, through the Eschede train station, before the driver realised he had lost the passenger cars, Mr Rathert said.
The station chief engaged the emergency brake, stopping the locomotive more than a mile from the scene.
The account conflicted with earlier reports that a car had plunged into the train from the overpass, causing the derailment.
Police said a car was crushed beneath the wreckage, but it was unclear where it was parked at the time of the accident. They said it was probably sitting along the tracks, not on the overpass.
Police spokesman, Mr Joachim Lindenberg, said the car belonged to a rail employee who was working along the tracks.
Views of the wreckage offered no clear clues as to what caused the accident. The nose of the rear engine stuck from under the bridge, and three derailed cars were piled on each other beneath the collapsed overpass.
At least 13 cars had derailed. The force of the pile-up pushed cars high into the air along an embankment.
Survivors were taken to hospitals throughout the region. The Red Cross chartered six buses to take most of the uninjured to Hamburg.
Above the scene of the disaster, helicopters ferried the most seriously hurt to hospitals in Celle and Hannover, the biggest nearby cities.
"You can't recognise it as a train any more" said a soldier who had flown over it.
The whole region was closed to road traffic to facilitate the rescue work, and some 1,000 rescuers were on the scene. The German army was bringing in heavy lifting equipment to disentangle the crushed wagons so that the last victims could be pulled out.
The rescue services were preparing to spend the night working under arc lights and the scene of the accident was to remain closed for 48 hours.
"We are going to try to lift the bridge to find survivors," said one firefighter. "We can't give up hope of finding anyone who may still be alive."
At Hamburg railway station, families waited in anguish for news of the passengers from Intercity Express 844 "Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen", which should have arrived around 1 p.m.
One and a half hours after the crash, the "arrivals" noticeboard said the train would be two hours late.