At least 261 people have died and 650 injured in India's worst rail accident in over two decades, officials said on Saturday, after a passenger train went off the tracks and hit another one in the east of the country.
The three-train collision occurred in the district of Balasore in Odisha state at around 7 p.m. local time on Friday.
A passenger train derailed and its coaches fell on to an adjacent track. They were then struck by an incoming train. One of the trains also hit a freight train parked nearby.
The death toll has reached 261, said K. S. Anand, chief public relations officer of South Eastern Railway on Saturday morning.
An extensive search-and-rescue operation was mounted on Friday evening.
More than 200 ambulances and hundreds of medical and rescue personnel were sent to the scene, the Odisha state Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena said.
Tragic accident
The cause of what is India's worst train crash this century is not yet known.
"It's a big, tragic accident," Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters after inspecting the accident spot.
The rescue operation to recover people from the wreckage has finished and the focus is now on restoring the site of the crash, India's South Eastern Railway company said on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was flying to the scene, ANI news agency reported, citing sources. He is expected to visit the injured in hospital.
Families of the dead will receive 1 million rupees ($12,000), while the seriously injured will get 200,000 rupees, with 50,000 rupees for minor injuries, Vaishnaw said. Some state governments have also announced compensation.
On Friday, hundreds of young people lined up outside a government hospital in Odisha's Soro to donate blood.
India's train network is one of the largest in the world, transporting over 13 million people every day. But the state-run monopoly has had a patchy safety record because of ageing infrastructure.
The state has declared Saturday a day of state mourning as a mark of respect to the victims.
India's worst railway accident was in 1981 when a train plunged off a bridge into a river in Bihar state, killing an estimated 800 people.
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