Six people were killed in a train accident on a bridge linking two of Denmark’s main islands on Wednesday, train operator DSB said.
Local media reported a passenger train braked suddenly after being hit by objects or tarpaulin from a freight train travelling in the opposite direction.
Police said 16 people were injured, out of a total of 131 passengers and three crew on board.
A police spokesman said the passenger train had been “hit an unknown object” but did not comment further.
Brewing company Carslberg confirmed the freight train was transporting their goods between its Fredericia brewery and Copenhagen.
The passenger train was heading towards capital Copenhagen – having departed from the city of Odense – when the accident happened around 8am local time on Wednesday.
Heidi Langberg Zumbusch, who had just boarded the train and taken her seat when the accident happened, said there was a “loud crash and the windows started smashing onto our heads”.
“We flew down onto the floor, and then the train stopped,” she told Denmark’s public broadcaster DR.
“We were lucky. The people in the carriage in front of us were not so lucky.”
The road and rail bridge is part of a transport system consisting of a road suspension bridge and a railway tunnel.
It had been closed to cars overnight because of strong winds but trains could pass.
The 18km (11 mile) link carries around 21,000 train passengers and more than 27,000 vehicles every day.
It is also part of infrastructure that links Denmark and Sweden to Germany.
The bridge was closed on Wednesday for both trains and vehicles towards Funen, but opened for car traffic towards Zealand again with a 31mph (50kph) speed limit.
A severe storm was making it difficult for emergency services to reach the passenger train, although an emergency centre was set up in the town of Nyborg at the western end of the bridge.