Trains collide in eastern India, killing at least 5 with rescue work ongoing

By The Associated Press on June 16, 2024.

NEW DELHI (AP) – Five people died and several were injured when a cargo train rammed into a passenger train in India’s eastern state of West Bengal on Monday, local media reported.

The state’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a post on social media platform X that a goods train had collided with Kanchanjunga Express in the state’s Darjeeling district. She added that rescue work was ongoing, with a team of doctors, disaster teams and ambulances at the site. “Action on war-footing initiated,” she said.

Police officer Abhishek Roy, who is at the site, told the New Delhi Television network that five people had died so far and 25 were injured in the collision, which occurred close to the New Jalpaiguri station.

In June last year, a train crash in eastern India killed over 280 people in one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades.