Train Collision in West Bengal Kills 15, Injures Dozens

A freight train smashed into the rear of a stationary passenger train in India’s West Bengal state, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities blamed on driver error.

Media showed images of the pile-up, with containers from the goods train strewn nearby, and one carriage left nearly vertical after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signaling error caused one of India’s worst rail crashes.

Fifteen bodies were pulled from the mangled carriages, Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in the eastern state’s district of Darjeeling, the site of the accident, said.

Fifty-four people were injured and rescue teams from the police and national disaster response force were working to clear debris from the derailed carriages, Roy added.

The goods train hit the Kanchanjunga Express traveling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, driving three carriages of the passenger train off the rails.

Rescuers used iron rods and ropes to free one carriage of the passenger train that had been swept upwards to lodge on the roof of the freight train by the impact of the collision.

The dead included the driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train, Jaya Varma Sinha, the head of the railway board that runs the countrywide network, told reporters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences on the loss of life and said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was on his way to the site.

About 288 people died a year ago in the neighboring state of Odisha, in India’s worst rail crash in more than two decades, caused by a signal failure.

Opposition parties criticized Modi’s government for its record on rail safety.