Television images from the scene show destroyed carriages, twisted metal and a large number of passengers lying next to the accident site in the state of Odisha, writes NTB. – The first priority now is to rescue the passengers and provide health care to the injured, said Pradeep Jena, head of the state administration in Odisha. The number of confirmed dead has increased throughout the evening, and on the night of Saturday local time 233 have died, according to the Reuters news agency. The death toll is expected to increase, writes State Secretary Pradeep Jena on Twitter. Over 900 have been injured and taken to hospital, – There is blood and people dying around me, says an eyewitness to Reuters. The death toll and the number of injured are rising after trains collided in India, Friday 2 June 2023 Photo: AP Trapped passengers After the accident, rescue teams worked to get several hundred people stuck in the wreckage of the train carriages out, says district manager Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde from Balasore. One of the survivors says that he had 10-15 people over him when the accident happened. – I was at the bottom of a pile of people. When I came out of the train wreck, I saw someone who had lost his hand. One had lost a leg. Another had a broken face, he says according to the BBC. Between ten and twelve train carriages derailed in the accident, and wreckage ended up on a track next to it, says a spokesperson for the Ministry of Railways to the AP news agency. Another passenger train, coming from the opposite direction, ran into the wreckage, and up to three carriages from this train also derailed. Pictures from the scene of the accident show people climbing on the wreckage in the hope of rescuing the injured. People try to escape from overturned wagon trains, after a collision between two trains, in Balasore, India on June 2, 2023. (screenshot taken from a video) Photo: Reuters Freight train also involved A freight train was also involved in the incident, says Amitabh Sharma in Indian Railways to AFP. This train was parked at the scene of the accident. Almost 500 police officers and rescue teams, as well as 200 ambulances and buses, have taken part in the rescue effort, according to Pradeep Jena. The Indian railway network is the largest in the world under one central management. Every day, about 12 million Indians take the train, writes NTB. Several hundred train accidents occur in India every year, and many of them are due to old signaling systems or human error. In recent years, major new investments have contributed to improving the safety of train traffic in India.
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