Train hits crowd, killing at least 28

NEW DELHI – At least 28 people were killed Monday when an express train at a remote station in northern India plowed into people crossing the tracks, according to witnesses, officials and local media.

The accident prompted an angry crowd to attack the station and set fire to two trains.

The victims, mostly area residents heading for a nearby temple, had just gotten off a local train at Dhamara Ghat station in northern Bihar state when they were hit by the express train on a parallel track about 8:30 a.m.

In addition to the 28 confirmed dead, many were grievously injured, said Madhuresh Kumar, general manager of the East Central Railway, speaking by telephone from the Dhamara Ghat station. “The station is completely damaged,” he added.

The express train passing through Dhamara Ghat was traveling about 50 miles per hour when it struck the pedestrians, state railways minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told reporters. The train stopped several hundred yards down the track.

But while some questioned the driver’s role, Arunendra Kumar, chairman of the Railway Board (and not related to Madhuresh Kumar), told a news conference in New Delhi that pedestrians were at fault for “trespassing” on railway property.

Several of those injured were in critical condition, he added, so the death toll could climb further. A preliminary investigation has been ordered, he said.

Video footage showed a train parked at a small platform enveloped in thick black smoke with flames shooting from its windows. Bodies were laid out near the tracks, some wearing the saffron robes of Hindu pilgrims, surrounded by onlookers.

Police said they were unable to send more security to the remote site, which was difficult to reach by road. The railway tried to send doctors and nurses by train, Chowdhury said, but were deterred by blocked tracks and a fear they might be attacked.