Nine people are dead and 36 injured after a passenger train derailed in eastern India, railway officials said on Friday.
Twelve coaches of the train went off the tracks near the town of Mynaguri in West Bengal state late on Thursday, regional railways spokesperson Dilip Kumar Deka said.
“Three coaches totally capsized. While bodies of six people were found in rescue operations, three more injured died in the hospital overnight,” Deka said by phone.
Ten of the wounded were in critical condition at the hospital, he said.
The train was travelling from Bikaner in the northern state of Rajasthan to Guwahati in the north-eastern state of Assam.
Deka said rescue work had been completed, but train services on the segment would be suspended until the track was cleared.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who visited the accident site, told the ANI news agency that preliminary inquiry pointed at a “glitch in locomotive equipment” and a probe had been ordered.
The government would provide monetary compensation to the families of the victims and the injured, he said.
This was the first major train accident in India in nearly three years - the last time passenger deaths reported in a train accident were in March 2019, domestic media reported.
Accidents were previously common on India’s railway network, among the biggest in the world. There has been a significant reduction in accidents on account of several safety initiatives taken by Indian Railways, officials said.
Source: DPA
