At least 200 people were killed and 850 injured when two passenger trains collided in Odisha, in one of India’s worst rail accidents in years.
“I was there at the site and I can see blood, broken limbs and people dying around me,” an eyewitness told Reuters by phone.The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata to Chennai, collided with another passenger train, the Howrah Superfast Express, railway officials said on Friday evening.
The Howrah Superfast Express derailed and became entangled with the Coromandel Express, South Eastern Railway authorities said in a statement.Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said authorities’ priority was “removing the living to the hospitals, that’s our first concern, to look after the living”.
Rescue operations were underway at the site and “all possible assistance” is being given to those affected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.Rescue teams have been mobilised from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and Kolkata in West Bengal, federal Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a tweet.
The National Disaster Response Force, state government teams and the air force had also mobilised to respond to the incident, he added.