Accessibility links

Breaking News

More Than 100 Killed in India Train Derailment

update

Rescuers search through debris after 14 cars of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India, Nov. 20, 2016.
Rescuers search through debris after 14 cars of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India, Nov. 20, 2016.

A train derailment in northern India has killed at least 104 people and injured more than 100 others.

Rescue workers and volunteers are looking through the badly mangled coaches to see if they can locate additional survivors of the derailment that happened early Sunday morning near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state.

Dozens of ambulances have been deployed to the site.

It was not immediately clear why 14 of the train's coaches were thrown off the tracks.

Senior railway official Pratap Rai said survivors are still searching for family members. Some tried enter the damaged carriages to rescue relatives and collect belongings.

"We are using every tactic to save lives but it's very difficult to cut the metal carriages," Rai told Reuters from the accident site.

People gather as rescuers work the scene after 14 cars of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India, Nov. 20, 2016.
People gather as rescuers work the scene after 14 cars of an overnight passenger train rolled off the track near Pukhrayan village Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh state, India, Nov. 20, 2016.



A student who survived the accident told the French News Agency that the images of the bodies of her fellow passengers would haunt her for a long time and that she "was shaken to the core."

On Sunday Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences on Twitter.

"Anguished beyond words on the loss of lives due to the derailing of the Patna-Indore express. My thoughts are with the bereaved families," Modi said.

India has one of the world's largest railway networks. It is poorly funded, however, and deadly accidents happen frequently.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG