Danish amusement park scraps ride after girl killed

An amusement park in Denmark says it will shut down a roller coaster for good after a 14-year-old-girl died after the rear part of the ride reportedly came off the rails

An amusement park in northwestern Denmark said Friday it would scrap a roller coaster for good after a 14-year-old girl died, reportedly when the rear part of the ride came off the rails.

A 13-year-old boy also suffered hand injuries on Thursday on the Cobraen roller coaster at the Tivoli Friheden amusement park in Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city.

“There is no doubt that that the ride will be shut down and torn apart,” Tivoli Friheden amusement park manager Henrik Ragborg Olsen told local newspaper Aarhus Stiftstidende.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation.

Ragborg Olsen told Aarhus Stiftstidende on Thursday that “the rear two seats” of Cobraen were hanging “under the wagon train.” The roller coaster is 25 meters (82 feet) high and the wagons have a top speed of 70 kph (44 mph), according to the Tivoli Friheden Website.

In 2008, four people were slightly injured when the same roller coaster broke down, only days after it had been inaugurated.

The amusement park, which will remain closed until Monday, is located in the southern part of Aarhus, 156 kilometers (97 miles) northwest of Copenhagen.