You're reading: Train fire kills 47 in southern India; dozens hurt

HYDERABAD, India — A fire swept through a train car packed with sleeping passengers in southern India on Monday, killing at least 47 people and sending panicked survivors rushing for the only clear exit once the train stopped, officials said.

Investigators found charred remains of victims still in their sleeping berths and were struggling to identify them.

A
railway station worker noticed the burning coach as the overnight train
from New Delhi to the southeastern city of Chennai passed through the
town of Nellore at about 4 a.m., local official B. Sridhar said. Nellore
is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Hyderabad, the capital of
Andhra Pradesh state.

Once the alarm was raised, the train was
stopped and the coach was detached from the rest of the train to prevent
the blaze from spreading.

Passengers were evacuated once the train was halted.

“Since
the fire had engulfed one door of the coach, people had to rush to the
other end of the coach to exit,” Sridhar said by telephone from the
accident site.

Passengers said the fire spread swiftly through the coach.

“We
woke up suddenly when the train came to a halt. That’s when we noticed
the fire at one end of the coach and shouted out. People were still
sleeping, but once they realized the danger they scrambled to the door,”
Shantanu, a passenger in the coach, told New Delhi Television.

He said it took passengers a few minutes to react and push their way through the narrow space between the berths.

“By
the time we got out of the door, the coach was completely on fire,”
said Shantanu, who like many Indians uses only one name. He said
firefighters sprayed water over the burning coach, but it was gutted.

Sridhar said the fire may have been caused by an electrical short circuit in the coach.

The
blaze killed 47 people, said Anil Kumar, a regional railway manager. At
least 28 others were hospitalized with burns, including at least two in
critical condition, he said.

Railway and medical workers were trying to identify the dead, he said.

“This
is a very difficult task, since some of the bodies are charred beyond
recognition,” Sridhar said, adding that officials were making
preliminary identifications based on the reservations chart from the
train’s records.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed his condolences to the families of the victims.

India
has one of the world’s largest train networks, with more than 10,000
trains and 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track. Around 20 million
people travel by train each day.