At least 280 people have died with 900 injured in the world’s deadliest train disaster in two decades.
Two passenger trains collided in Balasore, Odisha, East India on Friday night, June 2, causing carriages packed with people to derail.
Images from the tragic scene showed rescuers scrambling up the mangled wreck in an attempt to find survivors.
The collision occurred at about 7pm local time (13.30 GMT) when the Howrah Superfast Express, running from Bangalore to Howrah, West Bengal, derailed and became entangled with the Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata to Chennai, railway officials said.
The death toll is expected to rise in the coming hours, state Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena said in a tweet, with Sudhanshu Sarangi, the director general of the fire department in Odisha adding 233 bodies had been recovered so far.
The trains which crashed in Balasore is about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the state capital Bhubaneswar had been travelling in opposite directions.
Nearly 500 police officers and rescue workers attended the accident with 75 ambulances and buses in tow, Pradeep Jena, a top bureaucrat of the Odisha state said.
