The public prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened an investigation into unintentional injuries, which aims to “determine the causes of the accident and highlight possible criminal responsibilities”.
“The first investigations made it possible to rule out the hypothesis of a voluntary act,” said the interim public prosecutor, Alexandre Chevrier.
A large security perimeter was established in front of the station, where numerous ambulances took up position. Injured people were evacuated on stretchers and others were taken care of under the station’s glass roof.
A video obtained by AFP shows badly damaged trains, the ends of the colliding trams heavily depressed, and passengers on the ground on the station platform.
“What we know at this stage is that there was a brutal collision between two trams, on the platform, under the station,” declared environmentalist mayor Jeanne Barseghian, who was quickly on site.
“It was a frontal impact following a tram reversing, the causes of which I do not know,” she added.
The accident occurred shortly before 4:00 p.m.
“We don’t know why – human error, material problem, all that needs to be verified – (the tram) did not manage to stay stuck and therefore started to move backwards,” detailed the president of the Company of Strasbourg Transport (CTS), Patrick Maciejewski.
“Several days will be necessary to restore traffic” of trams at this station, the CTS said in a press release.
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