The death toll from a derailment of a German train near a Bavarian alpine station has risen to five, police say, after another body was recovered from the wreckage.
Investigators were combing overturned wagons to find victims and clues about the cause of the derailment on Friday near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a region that is preparing to host the G7 summit in late June.
“At the moment we don’t think there have been any more casualties, but I still can’t say for sure,” Regional Police Deputy Chief Frank Hellwig told reporters on Saturday.
He said four of the dead were women and 44 people had been injured, some of them children.
The accident occurred shortly after noon when school holidays began in the two southern German regions of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria.
Police said the regional train was very crowded with about 140 people on board, as a new € 9 (£ 7.70) monthly public transport ticket valid throughout Germany also increased demand.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing visited the derailment site on Saturday and said he was very excited. “We will continue to investigate and get to the bottom of what happened,” he said.
The head of the German Deutsche Bahn railway company, Richard Lutz, also visited the crash site and said he was saddened by the deaths and promised a thorough investigation.
The train had just left Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the capital of the state of Bavaria, Munich, when the incident took place in the district of Burgrain.
The region has begun preparations to host the G7 World Leaders Summit on 26-28 June. Heads of state and government, including U.S. President Joe Biden, will meet in Schloss Elmau, seven miles (11 km) from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.