A train collision in eastern India has killed more than 200 people in one of the country’s deadliest rail accidents in decades, officials said.
At least 233 people were killed and 900 injured in a train collision in Odisha state on Friday night, according to Odisha chief secretary Pradeep Jena.
The Coromandel Express train bound for Chennai in southern India collided with a derailed train bound for Kolkata from Bengaluru. Local media reported that a stationary freight train was also hit by the crash.
Television footage showed train cars strewn across the tracks, some stacked on top of each other. Witnesses reported seeing the bodies of dead and maimed victims scattered around the scene.
“When I got off the train, I saw limbs scattered all over the place, a leg here, a hand there,” one survivor told broadcaster NDTV.
Rescue operations were underway Saturday morning as workers continued to search for passengers trapped in the collapsed carriage. Officials did not immediately say what caused the collision near the city of Balasore and said they were investigating.
Friday’s crash was the deadliest since 1999, when a train accident in West Bengal state killed 285 people.
“There was a deafening noise and then our train moved backwards and came to a sudden stop,” said Vidhan Jena, a passenger on one of the trains, according to The Times of India. I was in shock. It was a horrible sight.”
India’s railway network is one of the largest in the world and is vital to the movement of passengers and goods across the country.
But the aging system has been chronically underinvested and has been the scene of a series of tragic and fatal accidents. In 2016, a train derailed in the Uttar Pradesh state of Uttar Pradesh, killing more than 150 people.
Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted on Friday night that he was “on his way to the construction site in Odisha”.
He added that rescue teams were being deployed from different states along with the country’s air force. “All personnel necessary for rescue operations will be deployed,” he said.
“My thoughts are with the bereaved family at this time of grief. May the injured get well soon,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.