Fri 02 June 2023:
Many people are feared dead in eastern India after a passenger train derailed following a head-on collision with a goods train, according to media reports and officials.
Friday’s accident in Odisha state’s Balasore district sent 179 people to hospital, according to Pradeep Jena, Odisha’s top civil servant.
“Nearly 50 ambulances have reported, but the injured appear far too many. Large no of buses being mobilised to shift injured to hospital,” Jena wrote on Twitter.
Some coaches of Coromandel Express, which was going from Howrah to Chennai, had derailed and fallen on to the adjacent tracks. Yashwantpur-Howrah Superfast train, coming from the other side, rammed the derailed coaches, Railway Ministry spokesperson Amitabh Sharma told local media.
The details of the two trains are 12841 Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express and 12864 Yashwantpur-Howrah Superfast Express.
Fifteen coaches of Coromandel Express came off the tracks, while two of the other train got derailed.
Odisha Fire Services chief Sudhanshu Sarangi is supervising rescue operations. Medical colleges and hospitals in and around Balasore have been alerted and 60 ambulances have been mobilised.
Over a hundred personnel of the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) and its state counterpart are looking for trapped passengers and cutting through the debris to reach them.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted he has spoken to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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