At least 57 killed in India train crash in kolkata

 

 A speeding express rammed into the back of a stationary passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing at least 57 people and trapping others in the wreckage, officials said. 

The standing train was waiting to leave a station in Birbhum district, around 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the West Bengal state capital Kolkata, when the express slammed into its rear carriages. The force of the impact lifted one wagon clear off the tracks and left it mounted on an overhead passenger bridge.
An estimated 120 people were injured in the collision, 40 of them seriously, local police said. Bodies and badly injured travellers were being pulled from the crumpled mass of steel by emergency services and members of a huge crowd of onlookers who had gathered around the site of the accident.
“The death toll has crossed 50. We are still struggling to pull out some bodies,” senior police officer Humayun Kabir told AFP by telephone from the scene. It was not immediately clear what caused the accident, which occurred at around 2:00am (2030 GMT Sunday) when most passengers were sleeping.
“We still have doubts in our minds about who is this behind this accident,” Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is from West Bengal, told reporters before leaving for the accident site. “We are still finding out the details and we will take all necessary steps and action and find out who is behind this calamity.”
Compensation of 500,000 rupees (10,500 dollars) was offered to the families of the dead and 100,000 rupees to the injured.
“I was fast asleep on the top berth when there was this huge crash like an explosion,” one passenger told the Times Now news channel. “I was flung from the berth, and then people started shouting and there was complete panic,” he said.
Birbhum District Magistrate Soumitra Mohan said two compartments were so badly compacted that rescue workers had to try and access them through the roof using a blow torch. “The death roll could mount further as there are probably more bodies trapped inside the two coaches,” Mohan said.
The state-run railway system, still the main form of long distance travel in India despite fierce competition from new private airlines, carries 18.5 million people daily. There are 300 accidents on the railways every year, and past crashes have left hundreds dead.