A regional passenger train derailed near the southern German city of Ulm on Sunday evening, resulting in at least three fatalities and multiple injuries, according to local police reports.
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The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. near the town of Riedlingen, approximately 30 miles north of Lake Constance. The train, carrying around 100 passengers, was en route to Ulm when it left the tracks under circumstances that remain under investigation.
Video footage from the crash site reveals the severity of the incident, showing overturned train cars lying on their sides and leaning against each other in underbrush adjacent to the railway line. Emergency responders immediately launched rescue operations, with multiple helicopters stationed in a nearby field to transport injured passengers to area hospitals.
Authorities closed both the affected railway line and a nearby highway to facilitate rescue efforts and ensure the safety of emergency personnel working at the scene.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his condolences to the affected families through a statement posted on social media platform X. “We mourn the victims,” the Chancellor wrote in his message of sympathy.
Meanwhile, German investigators said Monday that the train derailment over the weekend 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,” police in Ulm said in a statement.
The victims have been identified as the train driver, another crew member, and a passenger, with many of the injured also being passengers. Television footage revealed the extent of the damage, showing several train cars lying on their sides and bunched together beside the tracks. The rear car remained upright but had also derailed, while the tracks showed visible bending several yards behind where the train came to rest.
Large amounts of mud were clearly visible across multiple sections of the railway line, confirming the mudslide as the primary factor in the accident.
This incident is one of Germany’s most deadly rail crashes since 2022, when a regional train derailed near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in southern Bavaria, killing five people. In that case, investigators determined that faulty tracks were responsible for the accident, contrasting with the weather-related cause of Sunday’s derailment.
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