Four people were killed when 12 train coaches were derailed in Uttar Pradesh, India on Thursday. Dozens of others were injured in the accident, and emergency services remain at the scene.
Local officials in Gonda district are overseeing relief operations with the assistance of villagers from the area, and several ambulances are on site, Indian Railways has said.
In footage published online, survivors could be seen squatting beside derailed train coaches as rescue operations were underway. The train was traveling from the town of Dibrugarh in the northeastern state of Assam to Chandigarh, Punjab.
Officials have been instructed to take the injured to the hospital as a 'top priority' and 'provide them proper treatment,' Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, posted on X (formerly Twitter). A high-level inquiry has been ordered following the incident, The Hindu newspaper reported.
All trains that were scheduled to travel via the same route have either been diverted or canceled altogether, reports said. Meanwhile, the Railway Ministry has announced that compensation will be provided for those who suffered in the incident, as well as for the families of the deceased.
Meanwhile, the Indian opposition was quick to criticize the government in the wake of the tragedy. Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the Indian National Congress, the key opposition party, described the accident as 'yet another instance of how the government has systematically jeopardized rail safety.' He urged the federal government to install the 'Kavach anti-collision system' on all routes to prevent further accidents.
The Kavach is a cab-signaling train control system with anti-collision features developed in India. Last month, the Railways Ministry revealed plans to implement the system on 44,000km of track within the next five years. However, the opposition has been urging the federal government to fast-track its implementation in light of several high-profile train accidents over the past few years.
Last month, nine people died and 41 were injured when the Kanchanjunga Express traveling from Agartala in Tripura to Sealdah in West Bengal was rear-ended by a goods train. Senior officials cited 'human error' as the likely cause of the accident.
Another major train collision occurred in Odisha state last year when almost 300 people were killed and more than 1,200 injured in the country's worst rail disaster in decades.
The world's most populous nation relies heavily on rail transportation, with more than 12 million people traveling on 14,000 trains each day.
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