Outlook Web Desk
At least 15 passengers died and 60 others were injured, after three rear coaches of the Sealdah-bound Kanchanjunga Express derailed on Monday morning as a goods train collided with it in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district
The three rear compartments derailed under the impact of the collision from behind by the locomotive of the goods train near Rangapani station, about 30 km from North Bengal's New Jalpaiguri station
The 13174 Kanchanjunga Express was bound for Sealdah from Agartala when the accident occurred around 9 am, the railway official said
The accident triggered haunting memories of the Coromandel Express disaster near Bahanaga Bazar in Odisha a year ago, which killed nearly 300 people and injured over a 1,000 others
The Odisha train accident became one of India's deadliest train crashes and was also the deadliest rail disaster worldwide since the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck
In another incident that took place in October 2023, 14 people died two passenger trains that collided on the Howrah-Chennai line in Kantakapalli, Vizianagaram district, Andhra Pradesh
In the Andhra Pradesh incident, Rayagada Passenger train struck the Visakhapatnam Palasa train from behind. The driver and the assistant driver of one of trains were found to be watching a cricket match on their phones
In another train accident from October 2023 again, North East Express derailed in Bihar's Buxar, near Raghunathpur station, killing at least four people and leaving several others injured