23 dead, 64 injured as express train derails in India

NEW DELHI: At least 23 passengers were killed and 64 others were injured after an express train derailed in north India on Saturday, officials said, as rescuers battle to free people trapped in the wreckage.

"Twenty-three people have died and 64 others are injured in the accident. Rescue and relief operations are continuing," GS Priyadarshi, a top civil official at the accident site told AFP.

Emergency workers were pulling people out of mangled, upended carriages after 14 coaches derailed near Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh state, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) from New Delhi.

"We are trying to take out the trapped people from the coaches," senior police officer Jitender Kumar told AFP.

Another official said metal cutters and cranes were being used to reach inside the damaged coaches as the federal government rushed dozens of rescuers with specialised equipment and sniffers to the spot.

"Scores of people have been safely evacuated from the coaches," fire and emergency officer Naresh Kumar told AFP.



Photographs and television footage showed scores of mangled coaches lying sideways as hundreds of people try to pull the passengers out.



Emergency workers look for survivors on the wreckage of a train carriage after an express train derailed near the town of Khatauli in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on August 19, 2017. PHOTO: AFP

The accident is the latest disaster to hit India's most populous state. It comes just a week after dozens of children died at a hospital that had run out of oxygen there.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a tweet expressed sympathies with the families of those killed and assured all possible assistance.

India's railway network is still the main form of long-distance travel in the vast country, but it is poorly funded and deadly accidents often occur.

Less than a year ago 146 people died in a similar disaster in Uttar Pradesh.

A 2012 government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on India's railways and described the loss of life as an annual "massacre".

Modi's government has pledged to invest $137 billion over five years to modernise the crumbling railways, making them safer, faster and more efficient.