30 d e a d, 200 hurt in India train accident

At least 30 people were killed and no fewer than 200 others were injured in a multiple train collision in eastern India's Odisha state, local media and officials said on Friday.

Many are feared trapped and the casualties may rise, officials said.

Witnesses and officials told local media that the Coromandel Express passenger train and a goods train collided near Balasore, about 200 kilometres from the state capital Bhubaneswar.

A second passenger train was also involved in the incident on Friday evening, according to Odisha's chief secretary Pradeep Jena, but the order of events was still unclear.

The Press Trust of India reported that around 50 people were "feared dead," citing unnamed officials. Many passengers were believed to be trapped under rail cars at the scene.

But NDTV put the number of the dead at 30.

Distressed by the train accident in Odisha. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to Railway Minister @AshwiniVaishnaw and took stock of the situation. Rescue ops are underway at the site of the mishap and all… The incident took place at around 7:20pm (local time) near the Bahanaga Bazar station when the Coromandel Express train was on the way to Chennai from Kolkata.

The office of the deputy inspector general of Balasore police meanwhile told AFP that at least 200 people were reportedly injured, many of them serious. "The details are not too clear yet as teams are on the ground and everyone is busy in the rescue work," a police official said.

About 60 ambulances and emergency teams had been dispatched to the site to help transport the injured to medical facilities across the region.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "distressed by the train accident". "In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to Railway Minister @AshwiniVaishnaw and took stock of the situation," Modi said on Twitter.

Local media reports showed images of a train car toppled to one side of the track with what appeared to be survivors on top of it, and local residents trying to pull out other victims to safety.

India is no stranger to railway accidents and has seen several such incidents in the past, but railway safety -- thanks to massive new investments and upgrades in technology -- has improved significantly in recent years.

Despite government efforts to improve safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India's railways, which with 40,000 miles of track is the world's largest network under one management.

Two trains collided near Delhi in August 1995, killing 358 people in the worst train accident in India's history. Most train accidents are blamed on human error or outdated signalling equipment. More than 12 million people travel on 14,000 trains a day across India.

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