Head-on train crash in Belgium kills at least 12

ABRUSSELS (AP) — Two commuter trains collided head-on today after one ran a stop light at rush hour in a Brussels suburb, killing at least 12 people and injuring 55, a Belgian official said. Other officials said the death toll was higher.

The impact peeled away the front of one train car and threw at least one other off the tracks, causing amputations and other severe injuries, witnesses and officials said. Train service across Western Europe was disrupted.

Lodewijk De Witte, the governor of the province of Flemish Brabant, told reporters four hours after the crash that the official death toll was 11, then added later that it had gone to 12 and “will certainly rise.” He said one train “apparently did not heed a stop light.”

The trains collided in light snow just outside of the station at Buizingen around 8:30 a.m. .