146 dead as rescuers complete Kanpur train crash search

Rescuers completed searching the incident Monday of a Kanpur train crash that killed a minimum of 146 individuals in among the most dangerous such incidents in India in 6 years.

The Indore-Patna Express came off the tracks near the northern commercial city of Kanpur right after 3 a.m. local time Sunday, triggering 14 coaches to derail.

Investigators will look into a possible fracture in the tracks as a prospective reason for the accident. Report said the train was taking a trip at 68 mph when it crashed, and noted that the carriages were outdated.

“There was a loud noise like an earthquake. I fell from my berth and a great deal of luggage tipped over me,” Ramchandra Tewari, who suffered a head injury, informed the reporters from his hospital bed in Kanpur. “I believed I was dead, and after that I passed out.”

Rescuers overcame the night to pull individuals from the twisted metal and overturned coaches near the town of Pukhrayan.

State official Debasish Panda informed that a minimum of 146 people were dead. Local police Inspector General Zaki Ahmad informed that about 226 people were hurt, 76 of them seriously.

A 2012 federal government report stated about 15,000 people are killed in train crashes every year in India. The worst occurrence occurred in 1981, when a passenger train fell into the Baghmati River in the north of the country, killing almost 800 individuals.