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Several people have suffered life-threatening injuries in a knife attack at the main railway station in the German city of Hamburg, police have said.<\/p>\n
Hamburg Police said 18 <\/b>people were injured in the attack at the northern city’s Central Station at about 18:00 local time (16:00 GMT) on Friday.<\/p>\n
Officers arrested a 39-year-old German woman at the scene as they carried out a major operation.<\/p>\n
The woman remains in police custody and is scheduled to appear in court on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In a post on X, Hamburg Police said several people who were hurt had sustained life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the press outside the station, police said they believe the suspect acted alone and did not have a “political motive”.<\/p>\n
Rather, they believe she may have been “in a state of mental distress,” Florian Abbenseth, a police spokesperson, told reporters.<\/p>\n
Police later added that its homicide division is investigating the incident as well as the suspect’s motives.<\/p>\n
The attack happened between platforms 13 and 14 – which are accessible via a busy main road – while a train was on one of the platforms.<\/p>\n
Some of the victims were treated inside trains, according to reports.<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the attack was “shocking” and thanked the emergency services on the ground for “their rapid assistance”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said four platforms at the station were closed and some services would experience delays and diversions.<\/p>\n
Pictures from the scene show a number of emergency service personnel and vehicles on the ground, and barriers that seem to be hiding the injured from public view.<\/p>\n
One photograph used by German media shows a man being taken away by paramedics on a stretcher.<\/p>\n
A video on social media appears to show the suspect with her hands behind her back being escorted out of the station platform by officers who put her in a police vehicle.<\/p>\n
Hamburg Central Station is one of Germany’s busiest transport hubs, with more than 550,000 travellers per day according to its website. It is often crowded during Friday rush hour.<\/p>\n
This is the latest in a series of violent attacks in Germany in recent months.<\/p>\n
In January, a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were killed in a stabbing in a park in Aschaffenburg<\/a>, with several others hurt.<\/p>\n A Spanish tourist was stabbed just a month later at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last December, six people were killed and hundreds were injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market<\/a> in the eastern city of Magdeburg.<\/p>\n The suspects in these previous attacks were migrants, which has led Germany to tighten border control checks<\/a> and saw immigration become a key issue for voters during the country’s federal elections in February.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n