Five railway workers in northern Italy were killed when they were hit by a train while carrying out overnight maintenance work, writes The Guardian.

Paolo Bodoni, the mayor of Brandizzo, told the AGI news agency that an emergency worker had described to him a “chilling scene, with human remains across 300 metres”.

He said it was “a huge tragedy” and an investigation was under way.

Police said the train, which was transporting wagons on the Milan-Turin line and was not in commercial service, was travelling at 160km/h when, shortly before midnight, it hit the team replacing parts of the track near Brandizzo, on the outskirts of Turin, the AGI and Ansa news agencies reported.