Berlin, 8 October 2022 (dpa/MIA) - German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said on Saturday that an act of sabotage had caused the massive problems with the train network in the north of the country. "Sabotage to cables which were vital for train traffic meant Deutsche Bahn had to stop trains running in the north this morning for nearly three hours," the operator said. Security authorities had taken over the investigation, Deutsche Bahn (DB) said. Earlier, DB said the disruption was down to a technical problem with the digital train radio communication system. The apparent sabotage brought train travel to a standstill in parts of northern Germany and the capital Berlin at the start of the weekend, before it was fixed a few hours later. However, disruptions were still possible during the course of the day, a DB spokesperson said in Berlin. Countless travellers in the region had been stranded at railway stations because all long-distance trains and some regional ones had been suspended. In the states of Lower Saxony - where regional elections are being held tomorrow - Schleswig-Holstein and the city-states of Hamburg and Bremen, there were no trains running at all at the time. Other parts of Germany were also affected. There were no long-distance trains running between Berlin in the east of the country, and Hanover and the western state of North Rhine Westphalia, DB said.