Train accident in eastern India kills 15 and injures dozens

• Opposition parties have criticized the Modi government for its record on railway safety.
• Fifteen bodies were recovered from the damaged carriages.
• The accident happened after the driver ignored a signal, an official said.

KOLKATA: A freight train plowed into the back of a stationary passenger train in India’s West Bengal state on Monday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities blamed on driver error.

Media showed images of the pile-up, with containers from the freight train strewn nearby, and one carriage left almost upright after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signaling fault caused one of the worst rail accidents accidents in India.

Fifteen bodies were recovered from the damaged carriages, said Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in the eastern state’s Darjeeling district, the site of the accident. Reuters.

Fifty-four people were injured and rescue teams from the police and the national disaster response force were working to clear debris from the derailed trains, Roy added.

The goods train hit the Kanchanjunga Express traveling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, sending three carriages of the passenger train off the tracks.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board at the time.

Rescue workers used iron bars and ropes to free a passenger train car that had been swept up to become stuck on 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 runs the country’s network, told reporters.

The accident occurred after the driver of the freight train ignored a signal, Sinha added.

Rescue work has been completed, Sinha said, and authorities are working to restore traffic, with the damage less extensive than initially expected.

“The guard’s compartment in the passenger train was badly damaged,” he added. “There were two parcel trucks connected in front of it, which reduced the extent of the damage to the passengers.”

Local residents heard a loud crash and saw the pile when they went to investigate, several told the A I news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of life and said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was on his way to the spot.

Some 288 people died a year ago in neighboring Odisha state in India’s worst rail accident in more than two decades, caused by a signal failure.

Opposition parties have criticized the Modi government for its record on railway safety.

“The increase in rail accidents in the last 10 years is a direct result of the mismanagement and negligence of the Modi government, resulting in loss of life and property of passengers on a daily basis,” Modi’s main opponent and Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi. said in a post on X.