13 killed in train crash in India

Two trains collided in bad weather in central India in an early morning accident that has left 13 dead and dozens injured, railway and police officials said. The crash occurred in the Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, about 350 kilometres from the state capital Bhopal, when a goods train smashed into a passenger train waiting at a station in heavy rain. "So far 13 people have been found dead and as many as 50 injured," a local railway manager Ghanshyam Singh said. "Relief operations are on while the injured are being admitted to nearby hospitals."

Television pictures showed several badly damaged carriages, one of which had been lifted up off the tracks by the force of the accident. A rescuer could be seen cutting into the mangled steel with a blowtorch. India's state-run railway system carries 18.5 million people daily. *AFP