Sainthia: A speeding express train plowed into a stationary passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing 61 people in a crash so powerful it sent the roof of one car flying onto an overpass.Officials said they could not rule out sabotage.
Residents crawled over the twisted wreckage trying desperately to free survivors before rescue workers arrived with heavy equipment to cut through the metal.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to the site, raised the possibility the crash could have been another case of sabotage, two months after Maoist rebels were blamed for a derailment that killed 145 people.- Banerjee said an investigation was under way to find out how both trains came to be on the same track.
- The crash happened about 2am when the Uttarbanga Express slammed into the Vananchal Express as it left the platform at Sainthia station, about 200 kilometres north of Kolkata.
- The accident destroyed two passenger cars and a luggage car, turning them into a tangle of twisted metal. The passenger cars were reserved for those on the cheapest tickets and such carriages are usually packed to capacity.
- The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car flew into the air and landed on an overpass above the tracks. Residents climbing through the debris searching for survivors were later joined by rescue workers using heavy equipment to cut through the metal.
- "I was sleeping when I felt a huge jolt and heard a loud noise and then the train stopped," passenger Lakshman Bhaumik told local television. Bhaumik survived with minor injuries.
- Rescuers recovered 61 bodies from the crash site and 125 other people were injured, said Surajit Kar Purkayastha, a top police official. The two drivers of the Uttarbanga Express were among the dead.
- Rescue teams arrived about three hours after the accident, a local resident said. Before that locals scrambled to help survivors out of the trains and to pull out bodies.
- Police official Humayun Kabir told NDTV, however, rescue workers reached the site within an hour of the crash.
By late Monday afternoon, rescue operations were nearly complete, said Samir Goswami, a railway spokesman. Cranes and labourers were working to remove the mangled coaches so the tracks could be cleared and train services resumed.
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