(Calcutta) At least eight people were killed in India on Monday when the driver of a goods convoy ignored a signal and rear-ended a passenger train in the eastern state of West Bengal, the state said. police and railway authorities.
About 50 people were injured and taken to hospital, Jaya Varma Sinha, chairperson of the Indian Railways Board, said in a statement, adding that the goods convoy “ignored the signal and hit the train from behind.”
Among the dead are the driver and his second who did not respect the signal, as well as a barrier guard and five passengers, added Ms. Sinha.
The chairman of the Indian Railways Board also said that the human toll could have been higher, because some of the last carriages of the train, hit more violently by the goods convoy, were carrying equipment and not passengers.
Images broadcast by Indian media show the tangled wreckage of wagons overturned on their sides, with one propelled skyward, resting precariously on top of another.
A local police officer, Iftikar-Ul-Hassan, told AFP he saw several seriously injured people pulled from the rubble.
“The toll could rise further, as four people were admitted [to hospital] in serious condition,” he said.
He added that the “tracks are being cleared” and rescue teams are working to “return the line to service”.
Darjeeling district police chief Praween Prakash told AFP that the rescue operation had been completed.
“We are now working on clearing the debris,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to “those who lost their loved ones,” in a social media post, adding that “relief operations are underway.”
The chief minister of this state in eastern India, Mamata Banerjee, described the accident as “tragic” in a message posted on social media.
“Doctors, ambulances and rescue teams were dispatched to the scene,” Ms. Banerjee wrote on social media, calling the accident “tragic” but without providing an assessment.
The accident occurred at Phansidewa in Darjeeling district when the Kanchenjunga Express train was hit by a goods train.
Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the “injured are being shifted to hospital.”
India, which has one of the largest railway networks in the world, has seen a large number of deadly train accidents in its history.
The safety of this network, used every day by millions of passengers, has however improved in recent years thanks to investments to modernize it by equipping it with modern stations and electronic signaling systems.
The deadliest accident in the country’s history remains that of June 6, 1981, when, in the eastern state of Bihar, seven carriages of a train crossing a bridge fell into the Bagmati River, killing between 800 and 1,000 people.
In June last year, nearly 300 people died in a collision between three trains in the eastern state of Odisha.
A train crossed the world’s highest railway bridge – 359 meters above a river – in a Himalayan region of India for the first time on Sunday, the railway minister said.
This metal structure, which spans the Chenab River, connects parts of northern Jammu and Kashmir state, a Muslim-majority territory administered by India, to the rest of the country.
Work on this railway has been underway for almost 30 years and the official opening of this link is planned in the coming weeks.
