Global Courant
NEW DELHI – More than 280 people have died and hundreds were injured after passenger trains derailed in eastern India on Friday, leaving many people trapped in damaged railcars, officials said.
More than 288 dead bodies were recovered overnight and Saturday morning, said Sudhanshu Sarangi, director of the Odisha fire service.
About 900 people were injured in the accident in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha, said PK Jena, the state’s chief administrative officer. The cause was investigated.
Hundreds of injured people were sent to hospitals after the accident, which happened about 220 kilometers southwest of Kolkata. The cause was investigated.
Rescue workers gather around damaged carriages at the scene of the accident near Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha on Saturday. Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty Images
About 1,200 rescuers with 115 ambulances, 50 buses and 45 mobile health units responded, officials said.
Rescue workers cut through the wrecked train cars to find people who may still be trapped, but are unlikely to be alive, Sarangi said.
Amitabh Sharma, a spokesman for the railway ministry, said 10 to 12 carriages of one train derailed and debris from the mutilated carriages fell onto a nearby track. He was hit by another passenger train coming from the opposite direction.
Up to three carriages of the second train also derailed.
The Press Trust of India news agency said the derailed Coromandel Express was en route from Howrah in West Bengal state to Chennai, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
A survivor told Asian News International that he was asleep when the train car overturned and several people fell on him
“At that time I was below all of them,” the survivor, who did not give his name, told the outlet. “When I got off the train, boogeyman, I saw someone with no leg, someone with no arm, someone with a totally messed up face.”
Another passenger, Gobind Mondal, told News18 Bangla that he had given up all hope of survival after the train car he was in crashed.
“We thought we were going to die. We got out of the compartment using a broken window,” he said. “We were taken to the pharmacy for first aid. I am out of danger, but I have seen some injured people who are in very bad shape.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was upset by the accident.
“In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved. May the injured recover quickly,” Modi tweeted, saying he had spoken to the railway minister and that “all possible assistance” was being offered.
Rescue workers are working on Friday at the site where a train derailed in the Indian district of Balasore.Press Trust of India via AP
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said he was rushing to the scene of the accident, while Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is expected to arrive on Saturday morning.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur each year on India’s railways, the world’s largest single-operator train network.
In November 2016, more than 100 people were killed when 14 carriages of a passenger train in northern India rolled off the track.
The following November, at least 39 people died and 50 were seriously injured in a train derailment in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
In August 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in the worst rail crash in India’s history.
Most train accidents are due to human error or outdated signaling equipment.
More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains every day across India, on 65,000 kilometers of track.
Mithil Aggarwal and Rima Abdelkader contributed.
