Three people were killed and 34 others injured after a train derailed in southwestern Germany on Sunday evening. The accident happened in the Biberach district of Baden-Württemberg around 6:10 p.m. local time, near the French border.

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Express Train Flies Off the Tracks

The regional express train, operated by Deutsche Bahn, was en route from Sigmaringen to Ulm when disaster struck. According to German media reports, two of the train’s carriages violently derailed, hurling off the tracks and into a nearby forested embankment.

Authorities confirmed that approximately 100 passengers were on board at the time of the crash. Emergency responders, including firefighters and rescue personnel, rushed to the scene, navigating through mangled metal and thick woodland in a race against time to free those trapped.

Grim video footage from the site captured the chaos and confusion: twisted wreckage, rescuers using heavy equipment, and haunting screams echoing through the trees. One carriage lay on its side, its roof torn open, surrounded by broken branches and debris—a stark reminder of the crash’s sheer force.

Carriages Thrown Into Trees by Impact

The violent derailment flung parts of the train deep into the surrounding forest. The carriages came to rest wedged between trees, some partially crushed, their frames buckled by the sudden stop. The destruction stretched along the track, leaving a path of devastation that emergency workers worked tirelessly to clear through the night.

German Chancellor Responds

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz responded swiftly to the unfolding tragedy. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), he wrote:

“The train accident in the Biberach district shocks me. I am in close contact with the Interior Minister and the Transport Minister and have asked them to support the rescue forces with all available means. We mourn the victims. I express my condolences to their relatives.”

Investigators Eye Landslide as Potential Trigger

While the exact cause remains under investigation, early reports suggest that nature may have played a deadly role. Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Thomas Strobl, speaking from the scene, pointed to recent severe weather in the area.

“There was heavy rainfall here,” Strobl noted. “So it cannot be ruled out that the heavy rain and the associated landslide were also the cause.”

More than 100 people were aboard the Deutsche Bahn train when at least two carriages derailed on Sunday evening in a forested area near Riedlingen, about 98 miles west of Munich.

Emergency services work on the tracks by a landslide after a regional passenger train derailed near Riedlingen, Germany (Nico Pointner/dpa via AP)

The train’s 32-year-old driver, a 36-year-old apprentice and a 70-year-old passenger were killed, police said on Monday.

Some of the 41 injured were seriously hurt.

Police said the downpours in the area caused a sewage shaft to overflow, likely triggering the landslide of an embankment where the derailment occurred.

Carriages of a derailed regional passenger train lie on a railway line near Riedlingen, Germany (Dpa via AP)

There was no evidence of an external influence that could have caused the derailment, police said.

Photos from the scene showed parts of the train on its side as rescuers climbed atop the carriages.

Rescue workers search for passengers (Thomas Warnack/dpa via AP)

“Such pictures shake us to the core,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said on Monday, offering his condolences to the victims’ families.

He pledged full support for the effort to clear up the cause.

German investigators said Monday that a train derailment over the weekend that killed three people and injured 41 others was the result of a mudslide caused by heavy rains.

“The water caused a landslide on the embankment near the tracks, which in turn probably caused the derailment,” the police in Ulm, where the train was heading on Sunday evening when it went off the rails, said in a statement.

The train driver, another member of the crew and a passenger were killed in the crash near Riedlingen, a small town roughly 30 miles north of Lake Constance in southern Germany. The police said that many of the injured were passengers.

Videos of the scene that appeared on television networks showed several of the train’s cars lying on their sides, bunched together next to the tracks. The rear car was still standing upright after the accident, but had also come off the tracks.