MANSAR, India, Dec 14 (AFP) - Fifty people were killed and about 150 injured when two trains collided head-on in northern India Tuesday, Punjab's chief minister said as rescuers scrambled to free passengers shrieking for help.
At least four carriages were badly damaged in the collision of the two passenger trains in Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh told the state assembly.
At the scene a long line of bodies covered with white sheets stretched across the ground. Others had already been sent to hospital morgues.
The bodies pulled from the twisted wreckage included 15 men, 11 women and one child. "Many of the dead were badly mutilated," said superintendent of police Hoshiarpur Sukdev Singh Bhatti.
Rescue workers used gas-powered cutters to reach passengers trapped inside in the trains, some screaming for help.
"People were shrieking as they were trapped inside coaches," said Jodha Mal, 40, owner of a shop near the site, adding he heard a huge screeching as the drivers tried desperately to halt before the loud collision.
Authorities appealed to villagers to donate blood.
The express train and the local train crashed deep in rural India, 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
"The cause of the accident is not known," Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said before leaving for the scene of the tragedy.
Railway officials said there appeared to have been a mixup that allowed the local train onto the single-track main line at the wrong time. Media reports said two stationmasters had been suspended.
Railway spokesman M.Y. Siddiqui said at least 50 passengers had "suffered major injuries."
"I heard a loud crash, almost a big blast. I ran out of my house to see smoke all around. Men and women from our village rushed to the accident site with ladders to try and get out as many people as possible," said one woman, Kamla Rani.
The express had left Jammu in Kashmir Tuesday morning bound for the western city of Ahmedabad. Tearful relatives thronged railway stations seeking word on the fate of their loved ones.
Anxious relatives of passengers on the local train between Jalandhar and Pathankot converged at the crash site to look for family members.
Up to 700 people could have been on the express alone at the time of the accident, said Mulkha Raj Sharma, superintendent at Jammu station.
Soldiers were called out to help in the rescue efforts and cranes were at the crash scene near Mansar village to pull apart the trains.
Villagers were distributing food and blankets to the injured.
Witnesses said the locomotives of both trains had been badly mangled in the crash just before midday (0630 GMT) but the driver of one train was pulled out alive. His condition was not known.
Media reports said a special train had left New Delhi for the accident site carrying doctors and medical equipment.
India's railway system, which stretches 108,700 kilometers (66,800 miles) across the nation of a billion-plus people, carries around 13 million people each day. It records about 300 accidents, small and large, every year, owing in part to its antiquated infrastructure.
In September 2002 130 people died when the luxury Rajdhani Express plunged off a bridge and tumbled into a river in eastern India. In 1998, a collision between two trains claimed at least 200 lives in Punjab.
Officials say many accidents could be avoided by reducing human involvement, especially in switching of tracks and signalling.
12/14/2004 11:47 GMT - AFP