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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Kate Connolly in Berlin

EXPLAINED: Germanys rail network brought to standstill by botched it replacement | Rare Historical Photos

A passenger walks under information screens on a near-deserted platform with trains stopped on either side of it
Information screens at Munich’s main station advise passengers not to board trains after an IT outage on Tuesday evening. Photograph: Christine Uyanik/Reuters

Germany’s rail network ground to a halt late on Tuesday as a result of maintenance work that went wrong, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers unable to get home as the national operator faced widespread criticism over the chaos.

The Deutsche Bahn (DB) meltdown was initially thought to have been caused by a cyber-attack, but it later emerged that it was likely to have been triggered by a scheduled attempt to replace an ageing component in the railway’s internal communication network, without which the trains are unable to run.

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