AT least 19 people were killed and around 100 were injured in a horror crash between two passenger trains in India’s Andhra Pradesh state on Sunday, a senior government official said.
The railway ministry said in a statement that two coaches of one of the trains carrying passengers were derailed.
APThe tragedy occurred in India’s Andhra Pradesh state[/caption]
APAround 100 people are thought to have been injured[/caption]
At least 19 people have been killed in a horror train crash in India
A preliminary investigation pointed the finger at ‘human error’ as the cause of the crash
A preliminary investigation found that “human error” had led to the collision, caused by “overshooting of signal” by the Visakhapatnam-Rayagada passenger train between Alamanda and Kantakapalle.
Nagalakshmi. S, a senior government official stationed in Vizianagaram, a district near the accident site, said that 27 people were injured and more than 90 people were travelling in the two coaches hit by the collision.
The accident occurred when the Visakhapatnam-Rayagada passenger train stopped due to a break in an overhead cable and the oncoming train, a Visakhapatnam-Palasa Express service, rammed into it, derailing carriages of the stationary train, a senior railways official said.
Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy ordered immediate relief measures to be taken and asked for ambulances to be rushed from Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli, the nearest districts to Vizianagaram, his office said in a statement.
The minister also issued orders to coordinate other government departments to initiate disaster-relief measures.
The accident comes just months after India‘s state-run railways suffered their worst train crash in two decades when 292 people were killed.
In that accident, a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped off the tracks and hit another passenger train coming from the opposite direction.
Federal police arrested three railway employees on charges of culpable homicide and causing evidence to disappear.
Indian Railways, the fourth largest train network in the world, is a state monopoly run by the Railway Board.
The board reports to the federal Railways Ministry.
The rail network is undergoing a £24.7billion transformation with new trains and modern stations under Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s push to boost infrastructure and connectivity.
On Sunday, Modi said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that he had spoken with the railways minister.
“Authorities are providing all possible assistance to those affected,” he said.
In August 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst train accidents in the country.
In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
APTwo passenger trains are thought to have collided[/caption]
Two coaches are thought to have been derailed in the crash
Disaster relief measures are said to have bene put in place
One of the trains is said to have ‘overshot the signal’ Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
