BERLIN, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Cables vital to the railway network were deliberately cut in two places, bringing a nearly three-hour halt to all rail traffic in northern Germany on Saturday morning, in what the authorities called it an act of sabotage without identifying who might be responsible.
Federal police are investigating the incident, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, adding that the motive was unclear.
The outage raised alarm after NATO and the European Union last month insisted on the need to protect critical infrastructure after what they called acts of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
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“It is clear that this was a targeted and malicious action,” Transport Minister Volker Wissing told a news conference.
A security source said there were several possible causes, ranging from cable theft, which is common, to a targeted attack.
Omid Nouripour, leader of the Greens party, which is part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition, said anyone attacking the country’s critical infrastructure would receive a “decisive response”.
“We will not be intimidated,” he wrote on Twitter.
CHAOS BEFORE ELECTION DAY
“Due to the sabotage of cables that are indispensable for rail traffic, Deutsche Bahn had to stop rail traffic in the north this morning for almost three hours,” the state rail operator said in a statement.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) had previously attributed the network outage to a technical problem with radio communications. Spiegel magazine said the communications system was down around 6:40 am (0440 GMT). At 11:06am, DB tweeted that traffic had been restored, but warned of continued train cancellations and delays.
The disruption affected rail services across the states of Lower Saxony and Schlewsig-Holstein, as well as the city states of Bremen and Hamburg, with a knock-on effect on international rail travel in Denmark and the Netherlands.
They came the day before a state election in Lower Saxony where Scholz’s Social Democrats are on course to retain power and the Greens are seen doubling their vote share, according to polls.
Queues quickly built up at major stations, including Berlin and Hanover, as departure boards showed many services being delayed or cancelled.
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Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Christian Ruettger; Editing by David Holmes and Mark Potter
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