It Was a Routine Morning Commute. Then, 'Lives Smashed'

At least six are dead and 16 are injured in Denmark after likely debris from a freight train hit a passenger train going the other way on a bridge connecting the country's largest island with another, per Reuters and RTE. The accident on the 11-mile-long Great Belt Bridge linking Zealand, home of Copenhagen, to Funen happened early Wednesday, with a police spokesman telling reporters that "we know an object hit the [passenger] train." Initial reports said it was possibly a tarp from the freight train that flew off; other reports indicated it may have been a container that fell, per the AP. Police haven't yet confirmed the cause.

"There was a loud crash and the windows started smashing onto our heads," one passenger told Danish broadcaster DR. The freight train appeared to be carrying wares from the Carlsberg brewery, which confirmed that a DB Cargo train involved in the accident had been carrying its goods. Reports place 131 passengers and three crew members on board the passenger train, which emergency workers found hard to reach due to severe weather. "Ordinary Danes on their way to work or heading home from the Christmas holidays have had their lives smashed," Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said in response to the crash. The head of Denmark's train system says both police and the Danish Accident Investigation Board are looking into the accident, per Al Jazeera. (More Denmark stories.)