At least 261 people have been killed and 650 are injured in a crash involving three trains in India’s eastern Odisha state, officials say.
This is India’s worst rail accident in over two decades, officials said on Saturday, after a passenger train went off the tracks and hit another one in the east of the country.
One train in Friday’s accident also hit a freight train parked nearby in the district of Balasore in Odisha state, leaving a tangled mess of smashed rail cars and injuring 650.
The death toll has reached 261, said K. S. Anand, chief public relations officer of South Eastern Railway. The AFP news agency had earlier quoted an official as saying 288 people had died.
The rescue operation at the crash site has ended, officials said.
The cause of India’s worst train crash this century is not yet clear.
Officials said several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed at about 19:00 (13:30 GMT) in Balasore district, hit a stationary goods train and several of its coaches ended up on the opposite track.
Another train – the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah – then hit the overturned carriages.
People were seen searching for their relatives at the site and nearby hospitals.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is at the site of the accident and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit the injured in hospital later on Saturday.
“The force with which the trains collided has resulted in several coaches being crushed and mangled,” Atul Karwal, chief of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) told news agency ANI. It was the third deadliest crash in the history of Indian railways, he said.
More than 200 ambulances and hundreds of doctors, nurses and rescue personnel were sent to the scene, the state’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena said.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is at the site of the accident and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit the injured in hospital later on Saturday.
Families of the dead will receive 1 million rupees ($12,000), while the seriously injured will get 200,000 rupees, with 50,000 rupees for minor injuries, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said. Some state governments have also announced compensation.
“It’s a big, tragic accident,” Vaishnaw told reporters after inspecting the accident spot. “Our complete focus is on the rescue and relief operation, and we are trying to ensure that those injured get the best possible treatment.”