Desperate search for survivors as death toll nears 300 in India train crash

At least 288 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1,000 injured following the collision between two passenger trains and a goods train in the city of Balasore, in eastern Odisha state, on Friday.
But rescuers expect the death toll to rise further, as many people are thought to be trapped under upturned carriages.

“We are not very hopeful of rescuing anyone alive,” Odisha’s Fire Services Chief, Sudhanshu Sarangi, told local news channel NDTV.
The cause of the crash remains unclear but Indian Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters Saturday that a “high-level inquiry” has been ordered into the collision, which took place near the Bahanaga railway station.

The incident has reverberated across India, a nation of 1.4 billion, prompting renewed calls for authorities to address safety issues that have plagued the country’s railways for decades.
India’s trains serve 13 million passengers every day, and 8 billion a year. While the government has recently invested millions to upgrade its railways, years of neglect have caused tracks to deteriorate.
Video footage and photographs from Friday’s crash site show scenes of chaos and despair. Dozens of dead bodies can be seen lying beside the mangled trains, while police officers and survivors stand nearby. Passengers’ personal belongings can be seen strewn inside carriages and windows have been crushed, spilling glass and metal debris onto the floors. Train carriages have been torn apart.

‘I saw people piled on top of each other’
One of the passengers sitting in the second to last coach, Anshuman Purohi, told CNN that he felt a “massive shake” and realized there was something “very, very wrong.”
“I opened the door and the scale [of the disaster] revealed itself. We saw the rest of the train in front of us in a ditch. As we walked, all we could here was a huge wail of human cries. Bloodied people, running to our coach for help and water.”
Purohi, who lives in Singapore and was visiting his family in Odisha, said that a few people he was with began calling emergency services, while he helped provide water.
“After walking across the tracks, you could start to see the scale of the accident,” he said.

Source: CNN