A train which derailed and ploughed into a house in Germany killing at least nine people was speeding, crash investigators say.

The overnight train was making its way from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to Basel in Switzerland when it crashed early on Sunday morning while travelling at three times the imposed speed limit just south of Cologne.

Nine people have been confirmed dead, with 52 others seriously injured and 54 more with less severe injuries.

Police said some of the 10 most critically injured were fighting for their lives.

A further 22 people believed to be on the train were still missing and these were listed as 16 Germans, four Americans and two Dutch citizens.

Speeding

Police said the train was travelling at well beyond the speed limit at the time of the accident, reaching 120km/h (75mph) on the approach to the station, where the limit was 40km/h (25mph).

Lead police investigator Winrich Granitzka said: "From the looks of it, it's rather unlikely that the train was observing the speed limit at the accident site."

After leaving the railtrack, the engine hurtled down an embankment with several of the front cars and hit a house.

None of the home's occupants was injured.

Rescue workers using heavy equipment and search dogs broke open mangled blue coaches at the debris-strewn site through the night.

Medics freed several passengers only by amputating limbs.

Investigators say more bodies could be buried under wrecked coaches due to be cleared later on Sunday.

Mr Granitzka said: "We cannot rule out more deaths but we do not think there will be many more."

The train driver was not injured, but under shock, police said. Investigators said they had recovered the train's speed recorder.

Many of the travellers, who included Dutch, British, Japanese, Italians and Americans, were on their way to ski vacations in the Alps, officials said.

"I was already sleeping and then a big crash woke me up," said a woman who lives about 100 metres from the accident site, at the small town of Bruehl.

Around 30 rescue vehicles were at the scene, and four helicopters had been used to transport the injured to hospitals throughout the area.

Repair work

The cause of the crash and subsequent derailment has not yet been established.

But a police spokesman said it happened as the overnight train was diverted to another platform because of building work on the tracks just outside Bruehl.

The nine-car train had crossed a series of points to avoid the track work.

German railways spokesman Manfred Ziegerath said it became derailed as it returned to the main line.

It is understood the train involved was not one of German Railways' high-speed express trains, like the one involved in the 1998 Eschede accident.

That crash was the worst in post-war Germany, killing 101 people when the train left the tracks and smashed into a bridge 35 miles north of Hanover.

Collided

In August last year, seven people were seriously injured when two underground trains collided in the centre of Cologne.

Thirty-one people died just outside Paddington station in London last October, when an express train collided with a local train.

And in India nearly 300 people were killed when two trains collided in August last year.

On 4 January this year, 19 people lost their lives when an express train collided with a local service near Hamar, Norway.