Trains Collide in India; 200 Dead

Two trains collided head-on in eastern India early today, turning carriages into mangled wreckage and leaving hundreds of people feared killed, according to news reports.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that officials believed at least 200 were killed and 1,000 injured.

Press Trust of India said as many as 500 people may have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in the twisted carriages of the two trains.

At least 148 bodies have been recovered from the twisted metal, the BBC reported.

Rail officials initially believed that the accident was caused by an explosion, but they later said a collision was to blame.

The BBC reported that one of the trains was carrying explosives that caught fire and exploded.

Officials said they believed that a signal failure may have caused both trains to be on the same track, the BBC reported.

The collision between the Brahmputra Mail train from Gauhati and the Awadh-Assam Express from New Delhi occurred in Gaisan Station, a small-town rail stop in West Bengal state, 310 miles west of Gauhati, at 1:30 a.m.

The area is remote, and further details were sketchy.

The government in New Delhi had no immediate comment.

Earlier, Robin Kalita, a Northeast Frontier Railway spokesman based in Gauhati, said seven coaches of the first train and five of the second had been ripped apart.

The worst previous train wreck in India took place near New Delhi in 1995, killing 358 people. Train accidents are common in India--which has the world’s biggest rail network--because of poor maintenance.

The engine of the Awadh-Assam Express was blasted into the air by the impact of the explosion and fell onto an adjacent railroad track, PTI reported.

Rail officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier had said they suspected militant groups from neighboring Assam state of bombing the trains.

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Indian Train Wrecks

The collision of two trains in India on Monday was one of the deadliest railway accidents in the South Asian country. A look at some of the worst train accidents in India this decade:

* Aug. 20, 1995: An express train slams into another train that had stopped after hitting a cow near the north-central town of Firozabad, killing 358.

* Nov. 26, 1998: Two trains collide in the northern town of Khanna, killing 208.

* Sept. 14, 1997: Five train carriages veer off the tracks and plunge into a river in central India, killing 81.

* Sept. 21, 1993: A passenger train collides with a cargo train near Chhabra in Rajasthan, killing 71.

* April 18, 1996: A passenger train rams into a stationary cargo train near Gorakhpur in northern India, killing 60.

* Jan. 5, 1998: A local train rams into a stopped express train near Lucknow in northern India, killing 52.

* April 27, 1999: A speeding train in northern India is rammed by a passenger bus crammed with wedding guests,

killing 38.

Source: AP