BERLIN (AP) – A train carrying dozens of schoolchildren derailed Friday in the Austrian Alps, and a carriage ended up on its side in a river, authorities said. Seventeen people were slightly injured.
The derailment happened at around 7 a.m. on the Mur Valley railway, a narrow-gauge line in central Austria, the Austria Press Agency reported. One carriage of the three-car train fell into the Mur river, which runs next to the tracks.
The commander of the local rescue services, Anton Schilcher, said 54 schoolchildren were riding the train on the last day before summer break. Seventeen of them were believed to have sustained slight injuries, APA reported.
Schilcher said that everyone on the train was rescued quickly.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the derailment. Schilcher said possibilities included the track having been damaged in a storm or an obstacle such as a tree root on the track.
Emergency personnel work close to a railway car that has fallen into the river Mur at the accident site of a derailed train of the Murtalbahn railways in Ramingstein in the Salzburg Lungau region, Austria, on July 9, 2021. – Austria OUT (Photo by FRANZ NEUMAYR / APA / AFP) / Austria OUT (Photo by FRANZ NEUMAYR/APA/AFP via Getty Images)