NEW DELHI – At least 23 people were killed and 50 others injured after a passenger train derailed in southern India, railway officials said yesterday.
Seven coaches of the Hirakand Express were thrown off the tracks around midnight Saturday, some landing on a goods train that was on a parallel track, said Divisional Railway manager Chandralekha Mukherji.
Rescue workers were trying to cut open the mangled coaches yesterday morning near the Kuneru railway station in the Vizianagram district of Andhra Pradesh state. The train was traveling between Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh state to Bhuvaneshawar in Orissa.
An investigation is underway.
In November, 146 people were killed when a packed passenger train derailed near the town of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh in the deadliest rail accident in the country in at least five years. (AP)