At least five people were killed in eastern India on Monday after a passenger train collided with a goods convoy in the state of West Bengal, police said. At this stage there are between 25 and 30 injured.
“Three compartments of the express train derailed,” Abhishek Gupta, a senior police officer, told AFP from the scene of the accident.
The chief minister of this state located in eastern India, Mamata Banerjee, described the accident as “tragic” in a message published on social networks.
“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.”
Tangled wrecks
Images broadcast by Indian media show the tangled wreckage of wagons overturned on their sides, with one propelled skyward, balanced precariously on top of another.
India, which has one of the world’s largest railway networks, has seen a large number of deadly train accidents in its history.
However, safety has improved in recent years thanks to investments to modernize the network with modern stations and electronic signaling systems.
The deadliest accident in the country’s history remains that of June 6, 1981 when, in the state of Bihar (east), seven wagons from a train crossing a bridge fell into the Bagmati River, causing between 800 and 1000 deaths.
In June last year, nearly 300 people died in a collision between three trains in the eastern state of Odisha.
ats, afp
