Dozens die in West Bengal train crash
July 19, 2010
A train crash in eastern India has killed at least 60 people and injured another 120, officials say.
A speeding passenger express hit another train waiting at a station in the town of Sainthia, West Bengal state, early on Monday.
The impact sent the roof of a coach into a footbridge above the tracks.
Residents climbed through the mangled trains looking for survivors. It was the second major railway accident in West Bengal this year.
In May, nearly 150 people died when a Bombay-bound passenger train derailed and was hit by a goods train. Police accused Maoist rebels of sabotaging the track, but Maoists denied the charge.
‘Complete panic’
The cause of the latest crash is not yet clear.
A number of trapped passengers were freed from the wreckage by emergency workers using gas cutters and other tools.
Local officials say the accident occurred at about 0200 local time on Monday (2030 GMT Sunday) when the Uttar Banga Express crashed into the stationary Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal Express at the station in the Birbhum district, about 200km (125 miles) north of Calcutta.
“I was fast asleep on the top berth when there was this huge crash like an explosion,” one passenger told the Times Now news channel.
“I was flung from the berth, and then people started shouting and there was complete panic,” he said.
Emergency officials said all the passengers trapped in the wreckage were rescued and all the injured were taken to hospitals.
Officials believe that the trains were packed with commuters heading back to work after spending a weekend with their families.
There is speculation that faulty signalling may have been the cause of the crash. A police investigation is now under way.
Accidents are common on the state-owned Indian railway, an immense network connecting every corner of the vast country.
It operates 9,000 passenger trains and carries some 18 million passengers every day.
Source: bbc.co.uk/
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