“At least five people died and 25 to 30 were injured,” Abhishek Gupta, a senior police officer, told AFP from the scene of the accident.
“Three compartments of the express train derailed,” he added.
The chief minister of this state located in eastern India, Mamata Banerjee, described the accident as “tragic” in a message published on social networks.
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.”
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 1,000 deaths.
In June last year, nearly 300 people died in a collision between three trains in the eastern state of Odisha.
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