At least 50 people were killed and almost 350 were injured in India after a passenger train derailed and collided with a goods train in Odisha’s Balasore district on Friday, Indian media reported.
The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata to Chennai, collided with a goods train that had derailed, railway officials said as quoted by Reuters.
Rescue operations were underway at the site and “all possible assistance” was being given to those affected, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet on Friday.
The teams have been mobilized from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar in Odisha 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 mobilized to respond to the incident, he added.
South Eastern Railway officials, who did not want to be named, said they feared there would be heavy casualties, without disclosing the number of deaths.
Video showed people clambering over the toppled and mangled carriages as injured were carried to waiting for ambulances, Reuters reported.
