Many curious people gathered at the site of the terrible accident. Without the fact that the tail wagons, hit the most violently, were carrying goods and not passengers, the death toll could have been higher.
AFP
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, police and police said. railway authorities.
Around 50 people were injured and taken to hospital, said Jaya Varma Sinha, chairman of the Indian Railways Board, in a statement specifying that the goods convoy “ignored the signal and hit the train from behind.
The driver did not survive
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 most violently by the goods convoy, were carrying equipment and not passengers.
Tangled wrecks
Images broadcast by Indian media showed 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 had seen several seriously injured people pulled from the rubble. “The toll could rise further because four people were admitted (to hospital) in serious condition,” he said.
Darjeeling district police chief Praween Prakash told AFP that rescue operations 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 message on social media.
The chief minister of this state located in eastern India, Mamata Banerjee, described the accident as “tragic” in a message published on social networks.
A large number of accidents
India, which has one of the world’s largest railway networks, 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 state of Bihar (east), seven wagons from a train crossing a bridge fell into the Bagmati River, causing between 800 and 1,000 deaths.
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 announced.
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.
(AFP)
