After the serious train accident with several deaths, the rescue work and investigations are ongoing – there could be more victims. It is not yet clear why the wagons derailed.
After the serious train accident in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with at least four dead, the investigations and rescue work at the accident site continue on Saturday.
There, on Friday afternoon, several regional train wagons derailed on the way to Munich in the Burgrain district. Several of the train’s double-decker cars overturned, slid down an embankment and ended up lying next to a main road. The cause of the accident was still unclear the day after.
At least four of the approximately 140 people on the train died. There were also around 30 injuries, including several children. Some of the victims suffered serious injuries and required emergency surgery. It was one of the worst rail accidents in Germany in recent years.
More victims possible
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) did not rule out that other victims could be discovered under the overturned wagons. Three bodies were found under the train, and a fourth person died on the way to the hospital. On Friday afternoon, Herrmann got an idea of the situation on site in Upper Bavaria and told Bayerischer Rundfunk in the evening that several people were still missing. But it could also be the seriously injured in the clinics, which the police still have to determine.
In addition to rescuing the victims and treating the injured, the focus is now on investigating the cause of the accident. A police spokesman said they were preparing for “lengthy investigations”.
According to Bavaria’s Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU), neither a second train nor another vehicle was involved in the accident. On Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bayern 2, radioWelt), Bernreiter added that one had to “assume that some technical cause, either on the vehicle or on the track, was the cause”. According to a railway spokesman, the route was equipped with electronic interlockings and modern safety technology.
Traffic affected by salvage work
The district office in Garmisch-Partenkirchen announced that by the end of the salvage work, car traffic in the region will probably also be affected by disabilities in the middle of next week. Traffic from Autobahn 95 is to continue to be diverted on a large scale, with the highway remaining closed to the south.
Munich’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx said on Friday evening that he was “shocked and sad that in this terrible accident, people were torn from their midst, killed or, in some cases, seriously injured”. The loss that the relatives of the deceased would have to suffer was “difficult to bear and cannot be understood in words”.
