It happened in the district of Burgrain near the popular holiday resort area of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the state of Bavaria near the Austrian border at around 12.15pm on Friday.Â
The regional train was travelling from Garmisch-Partenkirchen towards Munich at the time.Â
Police said later on Friday that four people were confirmed to have died in the incident and added that a large rescue operation was underway. The death toll climbed to five on Saturday as a further body was recovered from the wreckage.
Several people are injured.Â
READ ALSO: What we know so far about the German train crash in Bavaria
 Carriages of the red-coloured regional train were seen lying on their sides on a grassy area next to a highway.
Rescuers were standing on the top facing side of the carriages, using ladders to climb into the wagons to reach trapped passengers.
"People are being pulled through the windows," the police spokesman said earlier on Friday.
Police said about 30 people were injured, with about half of them in hospital receiving treatment.
The accident came as rail officials were nervously watching if a new €9 monthly public transport ticket valid across Germany would lead to overcrowded regional trains over the bank holiday weekend.
Stefan Sonntag of Upper Bavaria's police force said the regional train was "very crowded and many people were using it, hence the high number of injured".
School holidays were also starting from Saturday in the two southern German regions Baden-WĂĽrttemberg and Bavaria, raising fears children may count among the train passengers. But Sonntag said he did not have information on that.
A spokesman for the federal police said that three carriages had overturned. It's unclear what caused the train to derail.
Firefighters, emergency paramedics and police were on the scene on Friday afternoon as part of the rescue mission.
Several injured people were being taken to hospitals. According to a spokesman for the ADAC air rescue service, six rescue helicopters were deployed, three of them from the ADAC, and three from Austria's Tyrol region.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) closed the line between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Oberau. Replacement transport will be available, DB said.
Popular mountain resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen and its surrounding regions are gearing up to host the G7 summit of world leaders later this month.
From June 26-28th, the heads of state and government including US President Joe Biden are due to meet at Schloss Elmau - about 11 kilometres from Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Police and soldiers who had been deployed to prepare and secure the site ahead of the summit have now also been diverted to help in the operation.
#zugunfall #garmischpartenkirchen #oberland auf der Bahnstrecke zwischen Farchant und GarmischPartenkirchen kam es zu einem schweren Zugunglück @br24 - Einsatz läuft - weitere Infos liegen noch nicht vor #br_oberbayern #br_oberland pic.twitter.com/FRRh0x7yUh
— Martin Breitkopf (@MartinBreitkopf) June 3, 2022
Germany's deadliest rail accident happened in 1998 when a high-speed train operated by state-owned Deutsche Bahn derailed in Eschede in Lower Saxony, killing 101 people.
The most recent fatal crash took place on February 14th, 2022, when one person was killed and 14 others injured in a collision between two local trains near Munich.
In 2017, a collision between a passenger train and a stationary freight train near the western city of Duesseldorf injured 41 people.
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