At least 74 people were injured after 10 coaches of the Kaifiyat Express got derailed near Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh early on Wednesday. No deaths have been reported so far, The Indian Express reported.
The train, which was on its way to Delhi from Azamgarh, went off tracks around 2.40 am after colliding with a dumper. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said the injured have been taken to nearby hospitals. A team of National Disaster Response Force personnel has been deployed to the site of the accident.
The chief public relations officer of the North Central Railways, GK Bansal, said no passenger had suffered serious injuries. NCR has sent an Accident Relief Train to the site to take the stranded passengers to Delhi.
The mishap comes just days after at least 22 people died and 156 were injured in the derailment of the Kalinga-Utkal Express near Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar.
All passenger trains that were scheduled to run along the Kanpur-Tundla section have been canceled. Seven trains have been diverted so far because of the Kaifiyat Express derailment, according to ANI.
Unidentified officials of the North Central Railways told NDTV that work for a dedicated freight corridor was under way at the accident spot at the time of the derailment.
The Government Railway Police has claimed that the dumper belonged to one Kailash Chandra Jaiswal whose company was working on the construction of the freight corridor. However, the North Central Railways has denied this claim, saying that the dumper neither belonged to the contractors, nor the Railways, according to The Times of India.
“Since there is no railway crossing, the private dumper attempted to cross the railway line and got stuck,” Bansal said. “The driver broke the barbed wire and attempted to trespass the railway line, but when his vehicle got stuck, he abandoned it and ran away.”
This article was previously published on Scroll.in
Featured image source: newsheads
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