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| Sunday, 22 December 2002 |
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Nine die, 50 injured as Indian train jumps tracks HYDERABAD, India, Saturday (Reuters) An overnight express train jumped the tracks in southern India early on Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring 50, railway officials said. Nine coaches of the Bangalore Express jumped the tracks and overturned near the village of Ramalingaipalli, 400 km (250 miles) south of Hyderabad, the officials said. "Nine passengers are killed and about 50 injured," railways spokesman Michael Fredericks told Reuters. The train was bound for India's technical hub Bangalore from Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state. In September, 126 people died when a luxury train crashed in eastern Bihar in one of the worst rail accidents in India in recent years. Most of India's one billion people depend on the antiquated rail network of more than 63,000 km (40,000 miles), the world's second largest, as their main form of long-distance transport. Indian Railways, which celebrated its 150th anniversary this year, runs almost 14,000 trains carrying more than 13 million passengers a day and has about 300 accidents a year. Transport experts say a surge in traffic and lack of modernisation have made the system vulnerable. But rail authorities defend the safety record, saying the accident rate dropped to 0.57 per million km travelled in 1996/97 from 5.5 in the early 1960s. |
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