Search ongoing after Indian rail crash claims at least 23 lives

NEW DELHI: Emergency crews searched mangled carriages on Sunday for any further victims after a train crash in northern India killed 23 passengers, the fourth major accident this year on the crumbling network.

Another 156 people were injured when 14 carriages came off the tracks in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh state, 130 kilometres from New Delhi, on Saturday evening. The coaches were left piled atop each other after the express train derailed at 100 kilometres per hour, crashing into nearby houses and a college.

Rescuers used gas-powered saws on Sunday to prise apart the tangled metal and search the wreckage with sniffer dogs. “We are checking the coaches thoroughly for any survivors or bodies,” Anant Dev, Muzaffarnagar district police chief, told AFP. —AFP