The incident involved a crowded train on a regional route.

The carriage broke in half before falling into the Wupper river in the district of Elberfeld, the interior ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia said.

Germany's railways have been troubled by a series of accidents in the past year.

In the worst of them, 101 people died when a high-speed train derailed in northern Germany in June 1998.

In March, 13 people were hurt in three separate accidents. Last Thursday, three people were injured when a train collided with an excavator at a station at Warngau, southern Germany.