LUCKNOW, India - Rescue workers used gas cutters to pull out
survivors after 14 coaches of a passenger train rolled off the track,
killing at least 90 people in northern India early Sunday, police said.
The
bodies were retrieved from the mangled coaches that fell on the side
after the train derailed around 3:10 a.m., jolting awake passengers who
had settled in for the overnight journey. More than 150 were injured as
some coaches crumpled when they crashed into others, trapping hundreds
of people inside.
“There are people trapped inside. We are being
very careful in using the gas cutters,” said Daljeet Chaudhary, a
director general of police. He said the toll was likely to rise as
rescue workers were yet to gain access to some of the worst damaged
coaches.
The derailment occurred near Pukhrayan, a village near the industrial city of Kanpur.
Rescuers
used gas cutters to open the derailed coaches to reach those trapped
inside, while cranes were deployed to lift the coaches from the tracks.
Medical
teams were providing first aid near the site while the more seriously
injured were moved to hospitals in Kanpur, Chaudhary said. At least two
dozen suffered serious injuries, he said.
Passenger Satish Kumar said that the train was traveling at normal speed when it stopped suddenly.
“It
restarted, and then we heard a crash. When we came out of the train, we
saw a few coaches had derailed,” said Kumar, whose coach remained
standing on the track.
It was not immediately clear was caused the coaches to derail.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his concern over the derailment.
“Anguished
beyond words on the loss of lives due to the derailing of the
Patna-Indore express. My thoughts are with the bereaved families,” Modi
posted on his Twitter account.
Kanpur is a major railway junction
and hundreds of trains pass through it every day. Several trains using
the line have been diverted to other routes, Anil Saxena, spokesman for Indian Railways, said in New Delhi.
Accidents
are relatively common on India’s sprawling rail network, which is one
of the world’s largest but lacks modern signaling and communication
systems. Most crashes are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.
Trains
are the popular mode of transport for millions of Indians and around 23
million passengers use India’s vast railway network every day.
The
worst train accident occurred in 1981 near Saharsa Bihar when a
passenger train fell into the Baghmati River, killing nearly 800 people.
Several other major train crashes have claimed hundreds of lives each
since then.
