Human error was likely the cause of a head-on crash between a regional passenger train and a freight train in eastern Germany that killed 10 people and injured 40, a regional official said today.

The crash late Saturday at Hordorf, in the Magdeburg region of Saxony-Anhalt, was probably caused by one of the trains ignoring a red light on the section of single track, the head of the regional government said.

"It's likely the stop signal wasn't respected. It's not normal that two trains were running on the same track," Wolfgang Bohmer told jouranlists.

"We have to identify the people killed, which hasn't been completed yet," he said.

Only two of the victims had been identified during the night, the police said.

Some of the injured were in a critical condition early Sunday, the police said.

The regional train, which derailed and landed on its side, was the HarzElbeExpress (HEX) travelling between Magdeburg and Halberstadt.