Agencies/Hyderabad

Railway officials use a heavy-duty crane to lift the mangled remains of a coach of the Bangalore-bound Hampi Express after it collided with a stationary goods train near Penneconda town in Anantapur district yesterday
At least 25 people were killed and 45 injured early yesterday when a passenger train slammed into a stationary goods train in southern India, rail officials said.
The Hampi Express crashed into the parked goods train at Penneconda station in Andhra Pradesh as it was travelling overnight to Bangalore in Karnataka.
“The number of deaths now is 25 and 45 are injured out of which some have minor injuries but 10 are grievously hurt,” railway ministry spokeswoman Chandralekha Mukherjee said in New Delhi.
The Andhra Pradesh state police said the bodies of 16 of the victims travelling in a carriage behind the engine were badly burnt as it caught fire following the collision.
“The coach was meant only for women but it is not possible to say if the bodies are women or men as they are charred,” Charu Sinha, deputy inspector general of Andhra Pradesh police, said from the crash site.
“There are no more bodies in the wreckage as (rescue and salvage) operations are now over,” she said by telephone.
A police statement said bodies were taken out after rescuers sliced through the crushed carriages with mechanical cutters and used cranes brought from Bangalore.
“It appears that the driver of the passenger train overshot a signal and hit the goods train, but we are awaiting the results of an inquiry,” Mukherjee said.
The train, which left Hubli at 6pm on Monday, was to reach Bangalore at 6am. It originates in Karnataka and passes through parts of Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh before re-entering Karnataka.
Television footage from the scene showed mangled, upturned coaches with rescue workers carrying injured passengers out on stretchers by torchlight before dawn.
“When the train stopped with a loud bang, I got down to see burning passengers crying for help,” Munijayendra, 25, said.
“I will not be able to sleep for many days to come as their cries will be ringing in my ears,” he said. “The worst part is we were helpless as the heat was just unbearable.”
Rescuers and medical officials worked through the day, hacking through the twisted metal to get to those trapped inside the overturned carriages.
The driver of the train survived the impact but was unconscious.
Officials said the death toll was high as the passengers were asleep when the collision happened. All the victims are believed to be from Karnataka.
“Every life is precious. This is a very sad incident,” Railway Minister Mukul Roy, who arrived at the site of the accident yesterday afternoon, told reporters.
He promised compensation for the injured and families of the dead.
Anantapur district collector Durga Das and other senior officials are supervising the rescue and relief operations.
Andhra Pradesh’s Minister for Revenue Raghuveera Reddy, who visited the spot, told reporters that the injured were shifted to hospitals in Penukonda, Hindupur and Puttaparthi.
Another state minister Sailajanath and member of parliament K Chiranjeevi also visited the accident site.
Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy directed the officials to provide all help to the injured and other passengers stranded at the station.
India’s rail network is still the main form of long-distance travel in the country despite fierce competition from private airlines.
The 155-year-old railway system is among the largest networks in the world. It operates 9,000 passenger trains that carry an estimated 20mn passengers daily.
The railways have a poor safety record with more than 100 accidents reported every year. According to the Indian Railway Board, 1,220 people have been killed in train accidents in the past five years.
The last major train accident in India occurred in July last year when a packed express train travelling from Kolkata to New Delhi derailed at high speed in Uttar Pradesh, killing 69 people.
India’s worst rail accident was in 1981 when a train plunged into a river in the eastern state of Bihar, killing an estimated 800 people.