India Train Derails, Kills 31

Rescuers searched through the wreckage of a packed express train for people trapped inside after it derailed in northern India today, killing at least 31 and injuring more than 100 others, officials said. The Kalka Mail train was on its way to Kalka, in the foothills of the Himalayas, from Howrah, a station near Kolkata in eastern India, when 12 coaches and the engine jumped the tracks near the town of Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh state, a senior railway official said.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately clear but it appeared that the driver applied the emergency brakes. The accident site was a pile of twisted metal. At least one coach flew above the roof of another ahead of it and was dangling precariously, television footage showed. Another coach was thrown away from the rest of the train. The toll was likely to rise as rescuers made their way through the coaches and used gas cutters to cut through the mangled metal, said another official: "We're trying to cut into the coaches and rescue those still trapped inside." (More train crash stories.)