At least 40 killed as express train hits stationary freight train in northern India
Rescuers still working to free passengers trapped after collision in northern state of Uttar Pradesh
An express train ploughed into a parked freight train in northern India yesterday, killing at least 40 people and reducing cars to heaps of torn and twisted metal.
The express passenger train was travelling at high speed and slammed on its brakes in an attempt to stop, but it hit the train sitting on the tracks near a railway station in Uttar Pradesh state, district magistrate Bharat Lal said.
Six of the cars on the express train derailed, with one car with unreserved seating taking the brunt of the impact and accounting for most of the 40 deaths so far counted, senior police officer Amrendra Sainger said. "It has been reduced to a mangled iron mesh," he said.
"We do not know how many people were there."
The car seats 72, but such trains in India are often filled beyond capacity.
Authorities were searching for the station master, who disappeared after the accident in Sant Kabir Nagar, about 220km southeast of the state capital, Lucknow. But authorities said it was too early to say what had gone wrong and were investigating everything from mechanical failure to human error.