At least 15 people were killed and more than twenty were injured. after a collision between a passenger train and a freight train this Monday in the northeast of the Indiaapparently caused by human error, official sources confirmed to EFE.
The accident took place this morning, at approximately 8:50 a.m. (11:20 p.m. on Sunday in Chile) at a station in the Daarjeling district of West Bengal, a very popular tourist destination in the northeast of the country, especially during the summer.
“So far the bodies of 15 people have been recovered from inside the carriages”including the driver of one of the trains, the deputy superintendent of police of the Darjeeling district, Abhishek Roy, told EFE.
About 60 people were taken to hospitals for medical attention, most of them have been discharged. However, between 20 and 25 people remain hospitalized, according to the source.
Rescue operations are still underway, so authorities do not rule out that there are people trapped in some of the affected carriages. At the moment the causes of the accident are unknown.
Because the driver of the freight train is among the deceased, “We don’t have a precise way of knowing exactly what happened.” (…) apparently there was an omission of the signals, but we will know more after the investigation,” the director of the Railway Board, Jaya Varma Sinha, said in a press conference.
Furthermore, “the assistant conductor of the goods train and the guard of the Kanchenjunga Express passenger train were killed in the incident,” he added.
The express train was traveling from the Indian state of Assam to the city of Calcutta, in the state of West Bengal, according to local media.
The section where the accident occurred is a busy route that operates with an automatic signal for several parallel lines, so it frequently jams several trains at the same time, according to witnesses and local media.
Images broadcast by television channels show one of the carriages upright, partially in the air, and other carriages and cargo containers destroyed or derailed after the crash.
“The train accident in West Bengal is sad. My condolences to those who lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured recover as soon as possible. I have spoken with officials and taken stock of the situation. Rescue operations are being carried out to help those affected,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a message on X.
The Asian country has the fourth largest railway network in the world by length, and between April 2017 and March 2021 it recorded 2,017 incidents with derailment as the most common cause, according to a recent report by the Auditor General (CAG).
