A train carrying Japanese tourists derailed in the Swiss Alps yesterday, killing one person and injuring 42 others, police said.

Police did not give the nationality of the person who was killed in the accident but said that two of the three wagons that derailed were carrying "mainly Japanese".

Six of the injured were in a serious condition, a spokesman for police in Switzerland's Valais canton, Jean-Marie Bornet, said.

"Three wagons were derailed, two are completely laid down. In these two wagons, the passengers were mainly Japanese," he said.

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