India train crash leaves at least 133 dead, more than 200 injured

PanARMENIAN.Net - Indian rescue workers picked their way through the last of the mangled carriages of a derailed train on Monday, November 21 to pull out more bodies from a disaster that killed at least 133 people and injured more than 200, Reuters reports.

The derailment was India's deadliest train crash since 2010 and has renewed concern about the poor safety standard of the state-run network, which is a lifeline for millions of Indians but has suffered from chronic underinvestment.

The largely colonial-era system, the world's fourth largest, carries about 23 million people every day. But it is saturated and ageing badly. Average speeds top just 50 km/h and train accidents are common.

Police at the accident site in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said they were still searching through the last of 14 carriages that derailed in the early hours of Sunday while most of the more than 500 passengers were asleep.

"We have cleared 13 derailed carriages from the tracks but the last carriage is the most difficult to search," said Amit Chaudhary, a senior police official at Pukhrayan, 65 km (40 miles) from the northern city of Kanpur. "Maybe seven or eight bodies are in the last carriage."

Railway official Amit Malvi said more than 150 people had been admitted to government hospitals and several were in critical condition.

Authorities are looking into the possibility a fractured track caused the train to roll off the rails on its journey between the cities of Patna and Indore.