- Opposition parties criticize the Modi government for its track record on railway safety.
- Fifteen bodies were pulled from the wrecked cars.
- The accident occurred after the driver ignored a signal, the official says.
KOLKATA: A freight train crashed into the rear of a stopped passenger train in the Indian state of West Bengal on Monday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities attributed to driver error.
Media showed footage of the crash, with freight train containers strewn nearby and a carriage almost upright after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signaling error caused one of India's worst rail accidents.
Fifteen bodies were pulled from the wrecked carriages, said Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in Darjeeling district in the country's eastern state, the site of the accident. Reuters.
Fifty-four people were injured and rescue teams from the police and national disaster response force were working to remove debris from the derailed carriages, Roy added.
The goods train collided with the Kanchanjunga Express traveling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, derailing three coaches of the passenger train.
It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board at the time.
Rescuers used iron bars and ropes to free a passenger train car that had been dragged up and lodged in the roof of the freight train by the impact of the collision.
The dead included the driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train, Jaya Varma Sinha, head of the railway board that manages the national network, told reporters.
The accident occurred after the driver of the freight train ignored a signal, Sinha added.
Rescue efforts have been completed, Sinha said, and authorities are working to restore traffic, although the damage is less extensive than initially feared.
“The guard compartment of the passenger train was severely damaged,” he added. “In front were two parcel vans, which reduced the extent of damage to passengers.”
Nearby residents heard a loud bang and saw the crash when they went to investigate, several said. ME TOO news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences for the loss of life and said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was heading to the scene.
Some 288 people died a year ago in the neighboring state of Odisha, in the worst train accident in India in more than two decades, caused by a signal failure.
Opposition parties criticized the Modi government for its track record on railway safety.
“The rise in railway accidents in the last 10 years is a direct result of the Modi government's mismanagement and negligence, leading to loss of life and property of passengers on a daily basis,” said Modi's main opponent and Party leader of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi. he said in a post on X.
