PATNA, India (AP) — A train has derailed in eastern India Wednesday night, killing at least one person and injuring 30 other passengers, a government official said.
The Press Trust of India news agency said six of the 23 coaches of the North-East Express train, on its way to Assam state from New Delhi, have derailed near Raghunathpur railroad station in Buxar district of Bihar state.
The injured were rushed to hospital and rescue work was in progress though hampered by darkness, Manish Kumar, an official with the state of Bihar, told reporters.
Medical teams with ambulances rushed to the scene and hospitals were alerted to receive injured passengers, police officer Deepak Kumar said.
D.K. Pathak, a railroad official who was on the train at the time of the accident, said most injuries were reported from one of the derailed coaches.
Other details were not immediately available.
In June, India had one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes involving two passenger trains which killed more than 280 people and injured 900 others. A malfunction with the signal system was found to have caused the accident.
Most train accidents are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment in India.
In August 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst train accidents in India.
In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains daily across India, traveling on 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track.