Four people died and dozens were injured when an express train crashed head-on with a freight train in the Czech city of Pardubice late on Wednesday.

“I can confirm that four people suffered injuries incompatible with life,” local emergency spokeswoman Alena Kisiala told broadcaster Czech TV.

The accident occurred shortly before 11pm local time (9pm GMT) near the main train station in Pardubice, about 60 miles east of the capital Prague, Czech TV reported.

The express train had been carrying more than 300 passengers, many of them foreigners, it added.

Petr Fiala, the Czech prime minister, offered condolences on X, formerly Twitter, saying the crash was “a great disaster” and that “we all think of the victims and the injured”.

The interior and transport ministers arrived at the site around 1am on Thursday local time.

Vit Rakusan, the country’s interior minister, said the majority of the injuries were light, and that the passengers were evacuated into the train station building.

The express train, operated by the private Regiojet company, was heading to the western Ukrainian town of Chop close to the border with Slovakia.

The timetable shows the express leaving Prague at 7.52pm GMT on Wednesday and Pardubice at 8.47pm GMT. It was expected in Chop at 8.35am GMT on Thursday, after crossing Slovakia.

Czech TV footage showed at least one of the carriages derailed and passengers being ushered into buses near the Pardubice main station.

Mr Rakusan said that police were identifying the passengers gathered at the train station after Regiojet had provided the passenger list.

Rescuers said that nine ambulances, two helicopters and more than 60 firefighters, both professional and voluntary, had been deployed.

“The rescue work was complicated because the first carriage was deformed. That made it hard to access the injured people,” firefighter Pavel Ber told reporters at the site.

Local fire brigade spokeswoman Vendula Horakova told Czech TV the freight train was transporting calcium carbide.

Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway, said Martin Kupka, the transport minister.

He added that the main train corridor connecting Prague with the second Czech city of Brno and the third city of Ostrava would remain closed for at least several hours.

Pardubice was the scene of the worst-ever Czech railway accident, in 1960, when 118 people died and around 100 were injured in a head-on collision of two passenger trains just north of the city.