NEW DELHI: Rescuers battled to pull survivors Sunday from the wreckage of a train crash which killed at least 39 passengers in southern India.
Eight coaches and the engine of the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar express derailed at around 11:00 pm (1730 GMT) on Saturday night near Kuneru railway station in the remote district of Vizianagram in Andhra Pradesh state.
“We can confirm the death toll has gone up to 39 and 50 people have been injured,” J. P. Mishra, a spokesman for East Coast Railways, told AFP. “There is a possibility that the toll may go up. Rescue efforts are on.”
The accident comes only two months after nearly 150 people were killed in a similar disaster, highlighting the malaise on a network which is one of the largest in the world.
Mishra said that the injured have been shifted to two nearby hospitals.
National railway spokesman Anil Saxena said government officials as well as emergency workers worked through the night in a bid to locate survivors.
Television footage showed a line of carriages lying on their sides as rescuers in neon orange safety vests and hard hats tried to hoist passengers through the windows while locals gathered to peer at the rescue effort.
Other images showed injured victims on hospital beds and stretchers, with their limbs swathed in bandages.
The train was travelling from the city of Jagdalpur to Bhubaneswar when it came off the track nearly 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Visakhapatnam, the nearest city to the accident site.
Rail traffic on the coast line has been suspended.
The latest deadly incident comes two months after 146 people were killed when a passenger train was derailed near Kanpur, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
