More than 288 people were killed and more than 850 injured in a tragic accident involving three trains in India, officials disclosed on Saturday.
The incident took place around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the state capital, Bhubaneswar.
India is no stranger to railway accidents and has seen several disasters, the worst of them in 1981, when a train derailed while crossing a bridge in Bihar and plunged into the river below, killing between 800 and 1,000 people.
However, the crash which occurred on Friday, appeared to be the worst since the 1990s.
The Director-General of Odisha Fire Services, Sudhanshu Sarangi, said that the death toll stood at 288.
“The rescue work is still going on,” he told AFP from the accident site, adding there were “a lot of serious injuries”.
Odisha state’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena who also confirmed that stated that about 850 people sustained various degrees of injuries, adding that the injured people had been sent to hospitals.
“Our top priority now is rescuing (the passengers) and providing health support to the injured,” he said.
Amitabh Sharma, executive director at Indian Railways, told AFP that two passenger trains “had an active involvement in the accident” while “the third train, a goods train, which was parked at the site, also got (involved) in the accident”.
One survivor told local TV news reporters that he was sleeping when the accident happened, and woke to find himself trapped under about a dozen fellow passengers, before somehow crawling out of the carriage with only injuries to his neck and arm.
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