Hundreds more feared trapped in wreckage

August 2, 1999
Web posted at: 8:10 p.m. EDT (0010 GMT)

GAISAL, India (CNN) -- Indian officials are trying to determine how two passenger trains ended up on the same track, resulting in a horrific head-on collision early Monday that has left at least 220 people dead and 350 injured.

The collision between the Brahmaputra Mail train from Gauhati and the Awadh-Assam Express from New Delhi came at 1:55 a.m. in Gaisal Station, a small-town rail stop in West Bengal state, 500 kilometers (315 miles) north of the state capital, Calcutta.

Railway police sources said the crash was so powerful that the engine of the Awadh-Assam Express was blasted into the air and landed across the next track.

Seven coaches of the first train and five of the second were ripped apart, said Robin Kalita, a Northeast Frontier Railway spokesman based in Gauhati. Many of the train cars were ablaze.

Many of the victims were soldiers and security personnel traveling to and from Assam, a remote state in northeastern India wracked by separatist violence.

"I am very lucky to be alive," said Mohammed Rais, a soldier who was trapped in one of the mangled cars for two hours.

Doctors and dozens of medical students on the scene feared that hundreds of others were trapped in the wreckage, especially in "second-class" cars often crammed full.

Indian authorities expect the death toll to rise.

About 2,500 passengers were believed to have been aboard the two trains. Some seasoned medical workers were shaken by the amount of carnage.

"We are used to seeing dead bodies daily, but I've never seen anything like this," Dr. C.P. Singh said on STAR television.

'Like a very loud explosion'

Officials said the collision occurred with such force that they initially thought a bomb had exploded.

"It was like a nightmare. It was completely dark, and it sounded like a very loud explosion," said Nayak Lakhi Bora, a soldier who survived the accident with injuries.

He pointed to the carriage in which he had been traveling, which appeared to have flown upwards on the impact and then crushed a carriage of the other train as it came down.

"I don't remember how I came down," he said.

Investigators and top railway officials rushed to the scene of the accident, which is 14 hours by car from the nearest cities, Calcutta and Gauhati.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said an investigation would focus on how two trains ended up on the same track.

"How can two trains come on the same track when there is a double line here?" he asked.

Local officials blame a signal failure for the collision, the worst in India since 1995, when a crash near New Delhi killed 358 people. Train accidents are common in India, which has a rail network that carries 13 million passengers a day.

The worst rail disaster of all time also occurred in India, in 1981, when a cyclone blew a train off the tracks into a river into the northern state of Bihar, killing more than 800 people.

Correspondent Satinder Bindra, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.