A regional train derailed late Sunday in a wooded area in southwest Germany, killing at least three people and injured, according to the latest assessment by the police.
A hundred passengers were on board during the accident that occurred around 6:10 p.m. (4:10 p.m. GMT) near Riedlingen, in Baden-Wurtemberg, a hundred kilometers south of Stuttgart.
Contacted by AFP, the police initially reported four deaths before correcting their declarations. She did not give more details on the number of injured or the severity of their condition.
The railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) has spoken of “several dead and many injured”. Citing the emergency services on the spot, media reported 34 injured, the tabloid Bild speaking of 50 injured.
Two train cars derailed “for an unknown reason. The authorities are currently investigating the circumstances of the accident, “said the DB, adding that rail traffic was interrupted on a portion of approximately 40 kilometers.
German media have mentioned as possible causes a landslide, while violent thunderstorms have swept the region, according to information from meteorological services.
“There have been heavy rains here, so we cannot exclude that the strong precipitation and a landslide that resulted in the origin of the accident,” said Thomas Strobl, Minister of the Interior of Baden-Wurtemberg, at the place of the accident.
The German chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was “deeply upset”, saying his “sympathy to the victims and their loved ones”.
Previous in 2022
“I am in close contact with the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Transport, to whom I asked to put all the means necessary for the argument of the rescue teams,” he added on the social network X.
The intervention continued until late at night, the emergency services took several hours to evacuate the victims before working to release the yellow and gray cars of the train overturned on the side, according to the images broadcast on televisions, in a placed and difficult to access place.
According to the German media, they had to travel a long distance to reach the site.
Helicopters have also been mobilized to evacuate the wounded to the surrounding hospitals.
German transport is regularly pointed out by passengers due to the delay in trains and the dilapidation of infrastructure.
The new conservative government has committed to investing several hundred billion euros in the coming years, in particular to modernize infrastructure.
In June 2022, the derailment of a regional train had killed four people and thirty injured in the Bavarian Alps (south).
A survey targeting three employees of the railway company Deutsche Bahn had subsequently opened for suspicion of negligence.
The deadliest railway accident in Germany occurred in 1998, when a high-speed train derailed in Eschede, Basse-Saxe (North), killing 101 people.
