8:17pm UK, Friday February 13, 2009

At least 15 people have been killed after a train derailment in eastern India – and many passengers are still trapped in the wreckage.

The Coromandel Express at Kharagpur railway station

Around 1,500 people are believed to have been on the train, which was heading from Kolkata to Chennai when part of it came off the tracks.

The incident happened near the remote station of Jajpur Road, 65 miles north of the city of Bhubneshwar.

A rescue operation is taking place to reach those stuck inside the carriages but the number of dead is expected to rise, according to JP Mishra, the chief spokesman of the East Coast Railway.

“We do not know what caused the accident as yet,” he said.

More than 100 people were injured when at least 16 coaches of the high-speed Coromandel Express derailed, said Manmohan Praharaj, the police chief of Orissa state.

The Press Trust of India news agency has quoted eyewitnesses at the scene as saying some carriages were badly smashed.

“It was very dark and I could hear the shouts of many for help. There was utter chaos,” survivor Anupam Nayak said.

“We were fortunate as several coaches including the one adjacent to ours not only derailed but overturned.”

The daily superfast service from the eastern city of Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) to the southern city of Chennai (formerly known as Madras) crashed on the same day federal railways minister Lalu Yadav took credit for turning round the state-run transport network, which once faced bankruptcy.

He said he would cut rail fares for many trains by 2% and is looking at introducing “bullet trains” similar to those which operate around Europe and Japan.

There are 300 accidents every year on the rail network in India, most of which are blamed on poor maintenance.

The country’s railway system is one of the largest in the world, running 14,000 passenger and freight trains and carrying 18.5 million people each day.