Dozens killed as speeding train runs over crowd watching fireworks

FAN Editor

NEW DELHI — A speeding train ran over a crowd watching fireworks during a religious festival in northern India on Friday, killing at least 50 people, a Congress party leader said. The victims crowded the rail track on the outskirts of Amritsar, a city in Punjab state.

They didn’t see the train coming, which failed to stop after the accident, said the politician, Pratap Singh Bajwa.

Amrinder Singh, the state’s top elected official, told reporters that he had reports of 50 to 60 people dead. Thirty bodies had been removed from the site by Friday evening as relief work was being hampered by nightfall.

An eyewitness said the train didn’t even whistle as it sped past the site, where hundreds were busy watching the burning of an effigy of demon Ravana during the Hindu festival of Dussehra.

“Why did authorities allow the fireworks display so close to the railroad track,'” he asked on TV. He told the Republic television channel that he lost two brothers.

Police took several injured to nearby hospitals.

Following the accident, a large number of people rushed to the site and shouted at railway officials for not taking precautions in view of the festival.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted to the incident on Twitter.

While accidents are relatively common on India’s sprawling rail network, Friday’s was among the deadliest in recent years.

In 2016, 146 people were killed when a train slid off railroad tracks in eastern India.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Free America Network Articles

Leave a Reply

Next Post

New York man arrested for threatening to kill two US senators over backing Brett Kavanaugh

A New York man was arrested Friday morning for allegedly threatening to murder and assault two U.S. senators because of their support for the successful nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, federal authorties said. The man, 74-year-old Ronald DeRisi of Smithtown, Long Island, phoned in his threats to […]