35 feared dead after train derails in northern India

Jul 10, 2011, 15:03 GMT

New Delhi - At least 35 passengers were killed and 150 injured when an express train derailed in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, officials and news reports said.

Thirteen coaches of the Delhi-bound Howrah-Kalka train, which was travelling at a speed of 108 kilometres per hour, ran off the rails in southern Fatehpur district.

Senior state police official Brij Lal said a total of 35 passengers had died. Thirty-one bodies had been taken out of the coaches so far, the IANS news agency reported.

Railway officials and local police officers put the death toll lower, at 25.

'As many as 150 injured have been moved to nearby hospitals,' district police spokesman Sunil Rai said by telephone from the accident site, 140 kilometres south-east of the state capital, Lucknow.

Rescue workers were using blowtorches to cut open the wreckage to pull out survivors. Hundreds of villagers had gathered at the site to help with the rescue.

The accident led to the suspension of train services on what is one of the country's busiest railway routes.

Witnesses said eight of the 13 carriages had borne the brunt of the accident - several coaches were piled up in a mangled heap.

'We were sitting on our seats when suddenly everything turned upside down,' a survivor told the CNN-IBN news channel.

'When the train stopped we broke the glass windows to jump out on the track,' he added.

The train, which was coming from the eastern metropolis of Kolkata, was carrying an estimated 1,000 passengers in about 24 coaches.

Many of the injured limped around the accident site, carrying their luggage, television footage showed. Some wounded sat dazed, awaiting medical help.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately clear, but railway officials told news channels the accident occurred after the driver applied the emergency brakes.

Indian Railway spokesman Anil Saxena said a high-level probe had been ordered to investigate the reasons behind the accident.

Police said the death toll could rise as they feared there were some bodies trapped inside the coaches.

Soldiers from the Indian army also joined in relief operations on Sunday evening while military helicopters and air ambulances were pressed into service.

'Rescue workers and soldiers have been able to enter most of the coaches and the rescue operation will end shortly,' Rai said.

India has one of the world's largest rail networks and accidents are not uncommon. There were at least 19 rail accidents in 2010 and five so far in 2011.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed 'deep sorrow' and shock over the accident, the second involving a train in three days.

In the previous accident, on Thursday, 38 people were killed when a train crashed into a bus full of wedding guests on an unmanned crossing in the same state.