At least 230 dead in India train crash

From BZ/dpa

At least 900 people are said to have been injured. Many more victims could still be under the overturned wagons. The full extent is not yet foreseeable, the emergency services said. The accident happened on Friday evening local time, the rescue work took place in the dark.

Railway officials said the Coromandel Express from Kolkata to Chennai collided with another passenger train, the Howrah Superfast Express, in Odisha state around 7pm.

Apparently one of the trains had derailed. Then the second train, coming from the opposite direction, crashed into the overturned wagons. Videos show how helpers are desperately trying to rescue passengers from the crashed trains. More than 800 injured were taken to hospitals, said Odisha state chief official Pradeep Kumar Jena, according to Indian Express.

At daybreak on Saturday, the extent of the catastrophe really became apparent. About a dozen wrecked cars lay on and beside the tracks, towering steel behemoths, some with compartment ceilings torn open, windows shattered. On and next to the carriages, dozens of helpers in civilian clothes and rescue workers tried desperately to save injured passengers under the heavy rubble.

An eyewitness told local television station NDTV that he was jolted out of his sleep when his train suddenly derailed – and chaos broke out. “10 to 15 people fell on me,” he told the station. He himself escaped with injuries to his neck and hands, but then saw severed body parts everywhere.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ANI news agency that he had ordered an investigation to find out the cause of the accident. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Shaken by Odisha train crash. At this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the grieving families.” He promised compensation to the families and victims.