Recovery operation begins after India train derailment kills over 110 people

A recovery operation was started on Sunday (November 20) after at least 119 people were killed and more than 150 others were injured when an Indian express train derailed in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The death toll from the accident is expected to rise further as rescue workers continue the search for bodies several hours after 14 carriages of the passenger train came off the tracks in Pukhrayan, 65 km south of Kanpur city.

The packed train, operated by the government, derailed in the early hours of Sunday, when most of the 500 passengers on board were asleep.

Authorities said they were checking the condition of the tracks but would need to look further before concluding the cause of the derailment, which is India‘s deadliest rail tragedy since more than 140 died in a 2010 collision in West Bengal.

A team of army personnel and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were called in to carry out the rescue operation as darkness fell.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu visited the scene and said an investigation had been started.

NDRF officials said they would continue operations until all of the victims had been accounted for.

Junior Railway Minister Manoj Sinha said the cause of the derailment prima facie appeared to be a track fracture.

India‘s creaking railway system is the world’s fourth largest. The central government runs 11,000 trains a day, including 7,000 passenger trains that ferry more than 20 million people, but it has a poor safety record, with thousands of people dying in accidents every year, including in frequent train derailment and collisions.