Police say a man injured 4 with a hammer on a German train before he was detained

BERLIN – A man on a long distance train in southern Germany attacked and slightly injured four people with a hammer on Thursday before being detained by police, authorities announced.

Straubing police said that the attack had taken place on an Ice Express train towards the city of Hamburg in the north of Germany in the Austrian capital of Vienna while it was between the pace and the plateau in the southern state of Bavaria.

About 500 people were on board when the attack occurred, police said.

About 150 police, firefighters and emergency staff were deployed on the scene, police added. The railway line has been closed.

Police initially declared that the attacker had used an ax in the attack, but later said that he would have used a hammer and probably other weapons that they do not call more. They identified man as a 20 -year -old Syrian national.

The police did not provide more details on the identity of the attacker or his reason, but later said that he was under control by passenger colleagues and that he was also injured.

The author “is probably a little more seriously injured,” a police spokesman for the German news agency DPA said. He was in police custody and received medical treatments.

The four injured passengers, who were not identified, were taken to neighboring hospitals.

According to the Bavarian Red Cross, the emergency services were alerted around 2 p.m., the local time after the passengers fired the emergency brakes. The train stopped near the village of Straßkirchen, DPA reported.

The Red Cross said that a special care center had been installed nearby to take care of passengers. In addition to many rescue services and two helicopters, psychological caregivers were deployed to help those who were not injured but could have been traumatized.

The German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said in a statement that “our thoughts and our sympathy are with the injured and all those who must now accept what they have experienced” and thanked the emergency services for the rapid arrest of the suspect.

Germany has seen several violent attacks in public spaces in recent months.

In May, a woman stabbed and injured more than a dozen people at the Hamburg central station. In February, a driver participated in a demonstration in Munich, killing two and injuring more than 20.

In December, a man killed six and injured more than 200 when he led a car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg.