NEW DELHI: Rescuers struggled Sunday to pull survivors from the wreckage of a train crash which killed 36 passengers in southern India, the latest in a series of disasters on the country’s creaking rail network.
Officials were investigating whether Maoist rebels had tampered with the track, after eight coaches and the engine of the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar express were derailed at around 11:00 p.m. on Saturday.
“The death toll has gone up to 39. It is a possibility that it may rise further,” Anil Kumar Saxena, national railway spokesman, told AFP.
Another railways official J.P. Mishra earlier said some 50 injured have been moved to nearby hospitals.
The accident happened near Kuneru railway station in the remote district of Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh state.
It came only two months after nearly 150 people were killed in a similar disaster, highlighting the malaise on a network which is one of the world’s largest.
Saxena said government officials and emergency workers worked through the night to try to find survivors.
The spokesman said investigators were considering possible sabotage of the tracks by Maoist rebels, who he said were active in the area.
“It is being looked into, it is one of the many angles we are looking into,” he told AFP.
“There is some suspicion (of sabotage) because two other trains had crossed over smoothly using the same tracks earlier in the night.”
Police in Odisha, where the train was headed, dismissed any involvement by Maoist rebels known as Naxals in the derailment.
“We totally reject any possibility of Maoist involvement in the derailment. Kuneru is not a Naxal-hit area,” an unidentified senior intelligence officer was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
Television footage showed a line of carriages lying on their sides as rescuers in neon orange safety vests and hard hats tried to hoist passengers through the windows while locals looked on.
Injured victims lay on hospital beds and stretchers, their limbs swathed in bandages.
Mishra told the NDTV news network there were some 600 people in the carriages that derailed.
He added that 10 buses have been arranged for passengers who escaped injury to travel to the Odisha state capital of Bhubaneswar.
The train came off the track nearly 160 kilometers from Visakhapatnam, the nearest city to the accident site. Rail traffic on the coast line has been suspended.
Chief ministers of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh expressed their grief over the latest tragedy, while Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said he was rushing to the spot.
Prabhu announced compensation of 200,000 Indian rupees ($2,936) for the relatives of the dead and 50,000 for those injured.
India’s railway network is still the main form of long-distance travel in the vast country, but it is poorly funded and deadly accidents occur relatively often.
On Friday 10 coaches of an express train were derailed in the western state of Rajasthan, leaving many passengers with minor injuries.
The latest deadly incident comes two months after 146 people were killed when a passenger train was derailed near Kanpur, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, in one of the country’s worst rail disasters for decades.
Last month two people were killed and dozens injured after another train derailed, also near Kanpur.
In 2014 an express train plowed into a stationary freight train, also in Uttar Pradesh, killing 26 people.
A 2012 government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on India’s railways and described the loss of life as an annual “massacre.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has pledged to invest $137 billion over five years to modernize the crumbling railways, making them safer, faster and more efficient.
Writing on Twitter, Modi sent his condolences to the victims’ families.
“My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones... the tragedy is saddening,” said the prime minister.
Modi’s government has signed numerous deals with private companies to upgrade the aging network.
Japan has agreed to provide $12 billion in soft loans to build India’s first bullet train, though plans remain in their infancy.
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India rail disaster kills 39, fears toll may rise
India rail disaster kills 39, fears toll may rise
Missiles pound Ukraine capital ahead of Russian invasion anniversary
- Kyiv has faced waves of overnight strikes in recent weeks as Moscow has intensified its winter assaults
- The strikes also prompted heightened vigilance across Ukraine’s western border
KYIV: Explosions rocked Kyiv before dawn on Sunday after officials warned of a ballistic missile attack, just two days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
AFP journalists in the capital heard a series of loud blasts beginning around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT), shortly after an air raid alert was issued.
“The enemy is attacking the capital with ballistic weapons,” the head of Kyiv’s military administration Tymur Tkachenko said on Telegram, urging people to remain in shelters.
The air force later extended the alert nationwide, warning of a broader missile threat.
Kyiv, regularly targeted by Russian missile and drone attacks since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, has faced waves of overnight strikes in recent weeks as Moscow has intensified its winter assaults on energy and military infrastructure.
Temperatures had plunged to nearly minus 10C when the capital was struck again, with emergency services deployed across the city.
Tkachenko later said the attacks had caused a fire on the roof of a residential building.
The strikes also prompted heightened vigilance across Ukraine’s western border.
Poland’s Operational Command said early Sunday it was scrambling jets after detecting “long-range aviation of the Russian federation conducting strikes on the territory of Ukraine.”
It also came hours after blasts in Lviv, a western city near the Polish border that rarely sees deadly attacks.
Explosions ripped through a central shopping street around 12:30 am (2230 GMT Saturday), killing a policewoman and injuring 15 people after officers responded to a reported break-in.
“This is clearly an act of terrorism,” mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, offering no details on perpetrators.
Such attacks far from the front line have become more frequent over the past two years.
Four years of war
Ukraine will mark four years since Russia’s assault on Feb. 24, 2022, a withering war that has shattered towns, uprooted millions and killed large numbers on both sides.
Moscow occupies close to a fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to grind forward in places, especially in the eastern Donbas region, despite heavy losses and repeated Ukrainian strikes on logistics.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine “is definitely not losing” the war and that victory remains the goal.
He said Ukrainian forces had clawed back about 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) of territory in recent counterattacks, gains AFP could not immediately verify.
If confirmed, they would be Kyiv’s most significant advances since 2023.
Sweeping outages of Starlink Internet terminals across the Ukraine front, shut down by owner Elon Musk following a plea from Kyiv, have enabled the push, according to Zelensky.
The bombardment also came amid a diplomatic push by Washington to end the four-year war.
Ukrainian, Russian and US envoys have met several times since January, but without a breakthrough.
Zelensky, under mounting pressure from Washington to consider concessions, plans consultations with European leaders in the coming days and wants deeper involvement from Middle Eastern states and Turkiye.
AFP journalists in the capital heard a series of loud blasts beginning around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT), shortly after an air raid alert was issued.
“The enemy is attacking the capital with ballistic weapons,” the head of Kyiv’s military administration Tymur Tkachenko said on Telegram, urging people to remain in shelters.
The air force later extended the alert nationwide, warning of a broader missile threat.
Kyiv, regularly targeted by Russian missile and drone attacks since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, has faced waves of overnight strikes in recent weeks as Moscow has intensified its winter assaults on energy and military infrastructure.
Temperatures had plunged to nearly minus 10C when the capital was struck again, with emergency services deployed across the city.
Tkachenko later said the attacks had caused a fire on the roof of a residential building.
The strikes also prompted heightened vigilance across Ukraine’s western border.
Poland’s Operational Command said early Sunday it was scrambling jets after detecting “long-range aviation of the Russian federation conducting strikes on the territory of Ukraine.”
It also came hours after blasts in Lviv, a western city near the Polish border that rarely sees deadly attacks.
Explosions ripped through a central shopping street around 12:30 am (2230 GMT Saturday), killing a policewoman and injuring 15 people after officers responded to a reported break-in.
“This is clearly an act of terrorism,” mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, offering no details on perpetrators.
Such attacks far from the front line have become more frequent over the past two years.
Four years of war
Ukraine will mark four years since Russia’s assault on Feb. 24, 2022, a withering war that has shattered towns, uprooted millions and killed large numbers on both sides.
Moscow occupies close to a fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to grind forward in places, especially in the eastern Donbas region, despite heavy losses and repeated Ukrainian strikes on logistics.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine “is definitely not losing” the war and that victory remains the goal.
He said Ukrainian forces had clawed back about 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) of territory in recent counterattacks, gains AFP could not immediately verify.
If confirmed, they would be Kyiv’s most significant advances since 2023.
Sweeping outages of Starlink Internet terminals across the Ukraine front, shut down by owner Elon Musk following a plea from Kyiv, have enabled the push, according to Zelensky.
The bombardment also came amid a diplomatic push by Washington to end the four-year war.
Ukrainian, Russian and US envoys have met several times since January, but without a breakthrough.
Zelensky, under mounting pressure from Washington to consider concessions, plans consultations with European leaders in the coming days and wants deeper involvement from Middle Eastern states and Turkiye.
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