You're reading: More bodies pulled from India train wreckage

FATEHPUR, India (AP) — Rescue workers pulled more bodies Monday from the mangled wreckage of a passenger train that derailed in northern India, as the death toll climbed to 60.

Many more bodies were believed trapped under the twisted coaches, and soldiers were using gas cutters to slice through the metal, said Col. Amarjit Dhillon, a senior army official in charge of rescue operations.

The cause of Sunday afternoon’s derailment near the town of Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh state was not immediately known, but newspaper reports said the driver of the Kalka Mail slammed on the train’s emergency brakes to save some cattle squatting on the tracks.

Railway authorities were investigating the cause of the accident, said H.C. Joshi, a senior railway official.

Volunteers and soldiers worked through the night to pull many of the more than 100 injured from the train’s 12 shattered coaches. Officials said the train was carrying about 1,000 passengers, but the exact number was not known.

At least one coach flew above the roof of another ahead of it and was dangling precariously while another coach was thrown away from the rest of the train.

Dhillon said railway workers had hooked the coach to two cranes and were attempting to pull it clear.

"It’s a difficult operation. Two cranes are being used to pull up the coach," Dhillon said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the northeast, police said a militant group was suspected of triggering a bomb that led to the derailment of a second train, also on Sunday.

G. P. Singh, inspector-general of police, said a little known group the Adivasi Peoples’ Army, was suspected to have triggered off the bomb.

More than 50 passengers were injured when the train derailed, and the condition of four of them was critical, police said.