NEW DELHI (AP) — A freight train rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal on Monday, killing at least five people and injuring several others as rescue efforts were underway.
The state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in a post on social media platform She said doctors, disaster response teams and ambulances were carrying out rescue work at the site. “A war-fighting action has been initiated,” she said.
Police officer Abhishek Roy, who is at the scene, told the New Delhi Television network that five people had been killed and 25 injured so far in the clash, which took place near the New Jalpaiguri station.
Television channels showed images of one train ramming into the end of the other, with one compartment rising vertically into the air. Swarms of people had gathered at the scene as rescuers searched the crash site.
It was not immediately clear what led to the collision.
The Kanchanjunga Express is a daily train that connects the state of West Bengal with other cities in the northeast. It is often used by tourists traveling to the hill station of Darjeeling, popular at this time of year when several Indian cities are sweltering with heat.
More than 12 million people travel every day on 14,000 trains throughout India, over a route of 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles). Despite government efforts to improve railway safety, hundreds of accidents occur on Indian railways every year. Most are attributed to human error or outdated signaling equipment.
Last year, a train crash in eastern India killed more than 280 people in one of the country’s deadliest train crashes in decades.
