At least 116 people were killed early Sunday when a Patna-Indore Express train derailed near India’s northern city of Kanpur, according to a police official in Kanpur.
Rescue teams are working on the last overturned car, said Rajesh Modak, deputy inspector general of police in Kanpur. The other cars have been cleared of people, Modak said.
More than 150 passengers have been injured, according to CNN affiliate CNN News 18. More than 40 people are seriously injured, Rahul Srivastav, press officer for the Uttar Pradesh police, told CNN.
Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh state, is nearly 300 miles southeast of New Delhi, the capital.
The crash
Fourteen cars in the 23-car train derailed around 3 a.m. Sunday, Modak said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash or how many people were traveling on the train, Javeed Ahmed, director general of police for Uttar Pradesh, told CNN News 18.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences on Twitter, saying, “My thoughts are with the bereaved families.”
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Twitter that senior officers were immediately deployed to the accident site.
Prabhu also said the National Disaster Response Force has been activated and is headed to the scene.
India’s massive rail network, used by hundreds of thousands of passengers daily, is known to be poorly maintained. Despite being the most popular form of long-distance travel in India, several train accidents are reported each year.