New Delhi — At least 12 train passengers died after panicking and jumping from a passenger coach before being hit by another train on an adjacent track in a rumored fire accident in western India, the Press Trust of India reported on Wednesday. The Press Trust of India reported.
At least six other people were injured and taken to a nearby hospital, the news agency quoted police officer Dattatraya Kalare as saying.
The accident occurred in the state of Maharashtra near Pardade railway station, 410 kilometers (255 miles) southwest of India’s financial capital Mumbai.
PTI said the victims jumped from the Pushpak Express train, which had stopped after some passengers pulled the emergency chain. PTI quoted railway spokesperson Swapnil Nila as saying that those who got off the train were hit by another express train on the adjacent track.
“Our preliminary information is that a ‘hot axle’ or ‘sticky brakes’ (stuck) caused sparks in one of the Pushpak Express coaches, causing some passengers to panic. They pulled the chains and some jumped onto the tracks. At the same time, the Karnataka Express was passing on the adjacent tracks,” a senior railway official told PTI.
Despite government efforts to improve railway safety, hundreds of accidents occur every year on Indian railways, the world’s largest railway network under a single administration.
In 2023, two passenger trains derailed and collided in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s worst rail accidents in decades.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focused on modernizing the British colonial-era railway network in India, which with 1.42 billion people has become the world’s most populous country.
