At least 36 dead and 50 injured as express train derails in India
Last night rescuers were still pulling victims from the wreckage after a train carrying 600 people came off the track
RESCUERS have been battling to pull survivors form the wreckage of a train crash which killed at least 39 and left another 50 injured in southern India.
Eight coaches and the engine of the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar express were derailed at around 11:00 pm on Saturday in the latest of a series of disasters on the country's creaking rail network.
Last night rescuers were still pulling victims from the wreckage.
The carnage happened when the train came off the track near Kuneru railway station, 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the nearest city in the remote district of Vizianagaram.
"The death toll has gone up to 32, unfortunately. But it should settle at that. It shouldn't rise any further," J. P. Mishra, a spokesman for East Coast Railways, told AFP.
Some 50 injured have been moved to nearby hospitals while government officials and emergency workers battled through the night to try and find survivors.
"Our first priority is to take care of the injured passengers and provide them proper treatment by shifting them to hospitals. We are also searching all the coaches to ensure that nobody remains stranded in them," he added.
The accident 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.
Footage from the scene shows a line of train carriages lying on their sides as rescuers hoist passengers through windows.
Workers carried a half-naked man covered in dust out of a tilted carriage using a sketcher, while another TV image shows a man lying face down - crushed under mangled heaps of wreckage.
National railway spokesman Anil Saxena said investigators were considering possible sabotage of the tracks by Maoist rebels, who were active in the area and could have tampered with the track.
"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."
Officials say some 600 people were in the carriages when the train derailed and that 10 busses have been arranged for survivors.
Rail traffic on the coast line has been suspended as chief ministers of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh expressed their grief over the latest tragedy.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu rushed to the spot before announcing compensation of 200,000 rupees (£2,372) for the relatives of the dead and 50,000 for the injured.
India's train network is the primary form of long-distance travel in the country, but is poorly funded and is plagued with deadly accidents.
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.
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Last month two people were killed and dozens injured after another train derailed also near Kanpur.
In 2014 an express train ploughed 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 has pledged to invest billions over a five year period to update the crumbling railways to make them faster and more efficient.
Modi sent his condolences to the families on Twitter.
He wrote: "My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones... the tragedy is saddening."
On Friday an express train derailed in Rajasthan.