At least 233 people have died with 900 injured in the world’s deadliest train disaster in two decades.
Two passenger trains collided in Balasore, Odisha, East India on Friday night, June 2, causing carriages packed with people to derail.
Images from the tragic scene showed rescuers scrambling up the mangled wreck in an attempt to find survivors.
The death toll is expected to rise in the coming hours, state Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena said in a tweet, with Sudhanshu Sarangi, the director general of the fire department in Odisha adding 233 bodies had been recovered so far.
Mr. Sarangi added: ‘A very sad incident and the prognosis is not good’.
‘I was there at the site and I can see blood, broken limbs and people dying around me,’ an eyewitness told Reuters by phone.
Hundreds of young people lined up outside a government hospital in Odisha’s Soro to donate blood to help those injured.
Rescue teams have been mobilised from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and Kolkata in West Bengal, federal Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a tweet late on Friday.
Three National Disaster Response Force teams are at the site of the accident, and six more teams are being mobilised, the country’s National Disaster Response Force said.’
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