Munich, Germany- Five people have been confirmed dead with 60 injured following Friday’s train derailment near a Bavarian Alpine resort.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash but it took place on the third day of a low-cost, nine-Euro monthly train ticket plan by the government to help offset high transportation and fuel costs.
Police said the regional train was very crowded with about 140 people on board adding that the train had just left Garmisch-Partenkirchen for Munich.
Pictures showed carriages of the double-decker regional train stuck between tree branches and having rolled down a hill.
Local news media also showed at least one car spilling down the side of an embankment, as well as passengers sitting along the shoulder of a road near the tracks.
“At the moment we do not believe there were further victims, but I cannot yet say for sure,” said Frank Hellwig, deputy police chief of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen region.
According to news reports, rescue operations are taking place with the assistance of helicopters from Austria, which shares a border with Germany in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen region.
Meanwhile, a bullet train has derailed in Rongjiang County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province killing the driver and eight passengers.
According to China State Railway Group Co, two carriages of the train D2809 from Guiyang to Guangzhou came off the tracks that were hit by mud and rockslide as the train was about to arrive at the Rongjiang station.
China’s high-speed rail network includes 37 900 kilometres of lines that crisscross the country to link all of its major mega-city clusters. All have been completed since 2008. No major incidents have been reported on the network since 2011 when 40 people were killed and nearly 200 others injured after a high-speed train was struck from behind by another train near Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
