Two passenger train carriages lie next to each other following a derailment after they were hit by flash floods on a bridge outside the town of Harda in Madhya Pradesh state, central India on August 5, 2015/AFP
Rescuers searched through the night for passengers trapped in the trains that toppled after a surge of water from a nearby rain-swollen river struck the tracks in Madhya Pradesh state.
Some 300 people were rescued after 10 of the trains’ carriages and one engine derailed minutes apart outside the town of Harda close to midnight on Tuesday, police and other officials said.
The Kamayani Express, travelling from the financial city of Mumbai, derailed just minutes after a surge of water from the Machak river sank the tracks on a small bridge, chairman of the railway board A.K. Mittal said.
The Janata Express, coming the other way from the eastern city of Patna to Mumbai, crossed shortly after, railway ministry spokesman Anil Saxena told Indian television.
Passengers said they were thrown awake by the falling carriages which quickly filled with muddy water.
“I was sleeping and suddenly I felt a jolt. I woke up and saw that all the passengers were screaming and running,” Manoj Mongi told the Hindustan Times newspaper’s website.
“I came out. I saw three women floating, but I could not save them,” he added.
“The water level on the track was almost waist-high,” Shashi Bhushan Pandit, another passenger, added.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu told parliament in New Delhi that the number of confirmed deaths so far was only 12, but two officials in Madhya Pradesh put the death toll much higher.
State railway police chief M.S Gupta said 27 people had been killed and another 70 injured. “All the coaches have been cleared and all bodies have been collected from inside,” Gupta told AFP.
Madhya Pradesh government spokesman Anupam Rajan said that 29 bodies had been recovered, giving a breakdown to the Press Trust of India news agency as 13 men, 11 women and five children.
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