Over 100 killed as train derails in India
Another 150 people injured in crash in Uttar Pradesh state, deadliest rail disaster since 2010 collision
LUCKNOW, India — An Indian express train derailed early Sunday, killing over 100 people in one of the country’s worst rail disasters in years, police said.
Rescue workers were searching for survivors believed still trapped inside the badly mangled coaches of the Patna-Indore express after the crash near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state.
“The death toll has topped 100 now,” said Daljit Singh Chawdhary, the additional police director-general.
Another 150 were injured and rushed to nearby hospitals, which had been placed on high alert after the early morning disaster.
It is the worst disaster since 2010 when a passenger train crashed into a freight train in the eastern state of West Bengal, killing 146 and injuring over 200.
TV footage showed rescue workers using gas cutters and other equipment to slice through severely mangled coaches strewn with suitcases and other luggage.
Shocked passengers recounted being woken by a violent thud, and told of their desperate search for loved-ones on the train, which was carrying at least one wedding party with the marriage season in India in full swing.
“We woke up to a great thud this morning. It was pitch dark and the noise was deafening,” one passenger told reporters as he waited with his family at the scene.
“I am lucky to be alive and safe. It was a near-death experience for us.”
Many were sleeping when 14 carriages leaped from the tracks in a remote area outside the northern city of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state.
‘Shaken to core’
Nitika Trivedi, a student who boarded the train with her family from the eastern city of Patna, said images of the bodies of her fellow passengers would long haunt her.
“I had never seen something like this in my life before. I am shaken to the core.”
Railway officials said special trains had been pressed into service for stranded travelers.
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“We are also trying to clear the tracks and complete the restoration work as quickly as possible,” Vijay Kumar, a spokesman for north-central railways, told AFP.
Local media reports said the train was packed with families, some of them travelling home for weddings.
Bride-to-be Ruby Gupta, who survived the accident with a fractured arm, was desperately searching for her father.
“I have been looking everywhere for him,” she said according to the Press Trust of India.
National Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said in a tweet the government would investigate what caused the derailment and announced compensation for the victims.
India’s railway network, one of the world’s largest, is still the main form of long-distance travel in the vast country, but it is poorly funded and deadly accidents occur relatively frequently.
In 2014 an express train plowed into a stationary freight train, also in Uttar Pradesh, killing 26 people.
And last year 27 people died after two trains derailed in Madhya Pradesh state during heavy rain.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “anguished beyond words” by the loss of life in the latest accident.
Anguished beyond words on the loss of lives due to the derailing of the Patna-Indore express. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 20, 2016
In 2012 a government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on India’s railways, describing the deaths as an annual “massacre”.
Modi’s government has pledged to invest $137 billion over five years to modernize the crumbling railways, making them safer, faster and more efficient.
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