At least eight dead in Indian train crash

At least eight people were killed in southern India today when an express passenger train crashed into a stationary freight train.

It was the third fatal railway accident in Andhra Pradesh state in two months.

Railways Minister Nitish Kumar blamed the accident on “human failure,” and vowed to take strong action against railway employees who had fled the scene.

About 25 people were injured, said police in Parli, a town 185 miles west of Hyderabad. The passenger train’s engine and three carriages jumped the rails in the collision near the town early this morning.

The express had been travelling from the southern city of Secunderabad to Manmad in western Maharashtra state.

Kumar did not say what the railway staff had done wrong, but the presence of a stationary freight train on an express passenger track would suggest a switch had not been activated properly.

A railroad spokesman in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state, said the death toll could rise to more than 10.

Officials at the scene of the accident said the driver of the passenger train had seen the freight train ahead on the tracks and started to slow down, possibly reducing the force of the impact.

The spokesman said two relief trains had been dispatched to pick up stranded passengers.

At least 19 passengers died in a December 20 train derailment in Andhra Pradesh. In November, a speeding train ran over railroad workers, killing eight of them, in the same state.