Eleven individuals have been killed Wednesday after rumours of a hearth on their prepare triggered them to leap off and have been crushed to loss of life by one other incoming prepare, officers mentioned.
The incident within the western Maharashtra state is the newest to hit India’s creaking rail community, which carries tens of millions of passengers every day and has seen a number of disasters through the years.
“Folks have been run over by a prepare,” mentioned Ayush Prasad, a high official of Jalgaon district the place the accident occurred, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the nation’s monetary hub of Mumbai.
“11 individuals have died and about 5 are present process therapy.”
It was not instantly clear whether or not the hearth alarm was false.
A spokesperson for Indian Railways was quoted by native media as having mentioned that somebody had pulled the “alarm chain” on a Mumbai-bound prepare, following which “a number of passengers received down from the prepare”.
“At that second, they have been run over by one other prepare moving into the other way,” the spokesperson mentioned.
India’s inside minister Amit Shah expressed his “deepest condolences to the households of those that misplaced their lives on this accident”.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis mentioned the “tragic incident” was “deeply disturbing”.
“Deeply saddened by the tragic lack of lives,” he mentioned in a put up on X.
India has launched a $30 billion railway infrastructure modernisation in a bid to spice up the economic system and connectivity.
However analysts say that whereas the variety of accidents has gone down over time, India’s antiquated rail system nonetheless has a protracted technique to go.
A mean of 20,000 individuals died every year between 2017 and 2021 in rail accidents, in line with official information.
In 2023, almost 300 individuals have been killed when a passenger prepare and a stationary items prepare collided, with the derailed compartments then hanging one other fast-moving passenger service.
AFP