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Subscribe to RSSA fire swept through a passenger train in India, killing dozens and injuring several more. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Updated at 10:35 a.m. ET: 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 time, official B. Sridhar said. Nellor is nearly 310 miles south of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state.
Once the alarm was raised, the train was stopped and the passenger car detached from the rest of the train to prevent the blaze from spreading.
The Indian Railways is a vital national transportation grid for the country's 1.2 billion people, cramming 18 million people a day on to ageing trains.
But decades of low investment, a patchy safety record and frequent delays mean India has fallen far behind China in building a network fit for Asia's third-largest economy.
Electrical short?
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 told The Associated Press by telephone, speaking from the accident site.
NWS via AFP - Getty Images
Officials and rescue personnel trying to break into a burnt-out railway carriage after a fire ripped through a coach on a speeding express train near the town of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, India on Monday.
He said the fire may have been caused by an electrical short circuit in the coach.
Massive India blackout leaves 300M without power
The blaze killed 47 people, said Anil Kumar, regional railway manager.
At least 28 other passengers were hospitalized with burns, Sridhar said, adding that at least two of the injured were in critical condition.
AP
Railway workers and officials inspect the burnt coach of a passenger train at Nellore, India, on Monday.
Railway and medical workers were now 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 are making preliminary identification based on the reservations chart from the train's records.
India has one of the world's largest train networks. Around 20 million people in India travel by train each day.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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These poor people in India just can't catch a break can they?
Life is cheap when there are 6 billion of us.
The bars on the windows certainly don't help the situation.
Bluelake, that was the first thing I noticed too. I rode a train twice a day for 10 years in Chicago and they had 8 windows in every cart that pop out for emergencies. The furthest away you are from an exit is 5 seats.
very sad to hear. I think India needs to study this incident very closely to keep this from happening again. More exits and fire suppression/alarm systems are needed. At least have smoke detectors in these things
Soon to happen in US also ! There is no money for maintenance and everything is very outdated.It's just a matter of time .
So sorry to hear this. All of the Indian people I have met in my life seem very likable and funny.
I hope people are doing things to prevent disasters like this in the future.
My condolences to all of the families of the victims of such a terrible tragedy. Unfortunately out of the millions of people and routes ran everyday, eventually one will be the last one for whomever is aboard.
Just how big are those railway cars? 47 killed, 28 admitted with burns, perhaps more that made it out ok? How do more than 75 people lay down in a single car?
I wondered that too. And only two exits for that many people? It almost looks like bars on the windows from the picture above. Death trap.
There's no OSHA in India.
From the USA... You all are in my thoughts...
Sympathies to the families and friends of the victims. Safety costs money, the alternative is lives.
Inherited from British rule some 50-years past.. Maintenance by a 3rd world country since, has abounded them with many problems. The greatest being safety issues. As many as the numerous cultures of good people these rail lines run through. India now emerges in the 21st century placing a huge strain on their entire their rail system. The statistics of health and safety accidents concerning their trains, would horrify us all! Obama would be better placed as their president, rather than ours. We too need to get started into the 21st century, instead of re-inventing ourselves with hope and change.
You were making sense until you bashed Obama. I've ridden the trains in India. They were built in the 40's or earlier. Safety is not a big concern in that country. Most people operate in survival mode.
wow thats odd, they get miffed at a girl walking with there Olympic people like its a major tragedy now the largest blackout and a train fire, feel sorry for them but i wonder whats next.
no.. safety doesnt cost money here.. this has happened before and all they need to do is take the bars off the windows. i thought they had already done this after the last big fire
That is so very sad. It is such a shame that those poor people lost their lives. I have a question though: Why were the windows barred? people could have lived if they had been able to get out of the windows.
Was this one of those trains that shoe horn 3 times the people in the car than should be allowed?
This is horrible. But a contributing factor is the barred windows. Why are the windows barred? From what I've been told in the past, it is because people in India have no qualms about breaking onto trains climbing in windows to get a free ride. The problems with train crowding and sneaking free rides there are notorious. You also of course have problems with people riding on top of the trains, a further hazard. So, the people themselves, by their willingness to engage in illegal activities on such a grand scale, create the need for security measures that end up being unsafe, such as barred windows blocking escape from a burning train car.
I've noticed that no one much cares for this kind of realization; but it explains many problems that occur in our world. You can be offended by this fact, while you cry about how many people burned to death on the train because of the fact.
If people in a society are unwilling to grasp that they individually have to be able to participate within reasonable boundaries within that society, then this is the type of result that will ensue. What I think is the saddest thing is that this won't change anything; tomorrow, most of those train riders will be right back to the madness, as if it never happened.
I just called my favorite tech support and Bob didn't make it in today. Who is going to help me fix my Crapple now?
No wonder I've been on hold for six hours trying to reach technical support....
It is so very hard to watch the Indian nation turn its back on the unbelievable poverty of a nation with this huge population. The unbelievable starvation and poverty seen by westerners say they just can't put themselves through seeing this much poverty. One such person told me they saw very small children eating garbage off the ground which others had used for a restroom. The stench and the lack of basic human needs has gone unaddressed for many decades. The train deaths are another notch in the belt of inadequacy and inept Indian leadership.
Note the bars on the windows. They are there to keep riders without tickets from boarding illegally at the many stops along the way. Apparently the hundreds of illegal riders atop the train escaped unharmed and were not apprehended.
The real shame of this is that our bought and paid for members of congress weren't on that train.
Last time there was a train fire in India (2002 Gujrat), poor Muslims paid heavily. Hope for the better this time
BBQ anyone?
That was in bad taste Humerous
You can't BBQ in India, they worhship cows (and RATS), not eat them!
And what do you expect to happen in a craphole like this, I've been to India and Pakistan back in the 70's, and not a single thing has changed!
If their own government doesn't care, so be it, so pass the salt so I can eat my burger that's been laced with Mexi-Poop.