Deadly Train Crash in Germany Leaves at Least 3 Dead, Dozens Injured

A passenger train with some 100 people aboard derailed Sunday in the forests near Riedlingen, southwest Germany, eaving at least three dead, including the train driver and a Deutsche Bahn staffer, and injuring dozens more.

Authorities say 50 people were hurt in the crash, 25 of them seriously. The train, which was headed from Sigmaringen to Ulm, jumped the tracks for yet unknown causes. Two carriages toppled off the line, and a 40-kilometer stretch of track has been shut down as investigators dig into what went wrong.

Officials are looking closely at the weather. Interior Minister Thomas Strobl said the region had been hit by heavy storms earlier in the day, and a landslide may have triggered the derailment.

Photos and footage from the scene paint a grim picture: railcars lying sideways in the woods, emergency teams scrambling to pull people from the wreckage. Helicopters were brought in to airlift the badly injured, while others were treated on-site or rushed to local hospitals.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz shared his condolences online and said he’s working closely with ministers to make sure emergency teams have everything they need.

Richard Lutz, the CEO of Deutsche Bahn, called the crash “shocking” and said he’d be visiting the site Monday.

Deutsche Bahn has set up a hotline and brought in grief counselors to help affected families and passengers.

Germany’s rail system has taken a beating lately, with passengers complaining about old infrastructure, chronic delays, and technical problems. The government has promised to pour hundreds of billions of euros into modernizing the network, but accidents like this raise big questions about how fast effectively that’s happening.

Sadly, this isn’t the first incident in recent years. In 2022, a train crash in Bavaria left four people dead. And in 1998, one of the country’s worst train disasters killed 101 when a high-speed ICE train derailed in Eschede.

With input from Al Jazeera