Train accident on the Kanchanjunga Express: At least 8 dead. Latest updates

NEW DELHI (AP) — A freight train slammed into a passenger train in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal on Monday, killing at least eight people and injuring several others, officials said.

Doctors, disaster management teams and ambulances are on the ground in Darjeeling district, a tourist destination in the foothills of the Himalayas, state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in a post on social media platform X.

Three of the eight dead were railway employees, said Sabyasachi De, spokesman for the Northeast Frontier Railway. Nearly 50 people were hospitalized.

Television stations showed footage of one train crashing into the end of the other, with one compartment hanging vertically in the air. Crowds gathered as rescue workers searched through the wreckage.

The driver of the freight train, who was among the dead, ignored a signal and caused the collision, De said. Four compartments at the end of the passenger train were derailed by the impact, he said, adding that most of the carriages were carrying freight while one was a passenger car.

De said workers were restoring the damaged tracks and removing the derailed wagons. The remaining wagons had moved on to their original destination, the state capital Kolkata, he added.

The Kanchanjunga Express is a daily train that connects the state of West Bengal with other cities in the Northeast. It is widely used by tourists travelling to the hill resort of Darjeeling, which is very popular at this time of the year when the heat fades in other Indian cities.

More than 12 million people travel on 14,000 trains across India every day, covering 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track. Despite the government’s efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents happen every year, usually due to human error or outdated signaling systems.

Last year, a train accident in East India More than 280 people were killed in one of the country’s worst accidents in decades.