More than 90 dead after massive train derailment in northern India

FOURTEEN carriages of a passenger train have rolled off the track, killing more than 90 people and injuring more than 150 in a horror derailment in India.

Grim search: Volunteers and emergency workers scour the mangled wreckage. Picture: Supplied

THE death toll after fourteen carriages of a passenger train have rolled off the track continues to rise, with at least 91 people now dead, and more than 150 injured in northern India.

Volunteers and railway police pulled out the bodies from the mangled coaches and were working to rescue passengers who were trapped in other cars that fell on the side as ‘the entire train turned turtle’, said Daljeet Chaudhary, a director general of police, at the site of the accident.

The derailment occurred around 3am local time on Sunday near Purwa, a village near the industrial city of Kanpur, when the 14 coaches jumped the track.

Given the early hour, most of the passengers would have been asleep as the carnage unfolded.

Some coaches crumpled as they crashed into others, trapping hundreds of people inside.

Medical teams were providing first aid near the site while the more seriously injured have been moved to hospitals in Kanpur, Chaudhary said.

It was not immediately clear was caused the coaches to derail.

The toll is likely to go up as two air-conditioned coaches were severely damaged and people were still trapped inside, said Rajesh Modak of the Railway Protection Force.

TV footage showed rescue workers trying to cut through severely mangled coaches with suitcases and other luggage strewn around.

Witnesses spoke of being woken up by a huge bang and being thrown around. “We woke up to a great thud this morning. It was pitch dark and the noise was deafening,” a passenger told reporters as he waited with his family at the accident site.

Kanpur is a major railway junction and hundreds of trains pass through it every day. Several trains using the line have been diverted to other routes, Anil Saxena, spokesman for Indian Railways, said in New Delhi.

Train accidents are common in India, with most accidents occurring due to human error or ageing equipment. Trains are the popular mode of transport for millions of Indians and around 23 million passengers use India’s vast railway network every day.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “anguished beyond words” by the loss of life.

Modi’s government has pledged to invest $137 billion over five years to modernise its crumbling railways, making them safer, faster and more efficient.

In 2014, an express train ploughed into a stationary freight train, also in Uttar Pradesh, killing 26 people.