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Over 90 People Killed in India Train Derailment; More Than 150 Injured
At least 90 people were killed and more than 150 injured when an Indian express train derailed in northern Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, with the toll set to rise amid a desperate scramble to locate survivors from the mangled wreck.
Police officials said about 20 people were still missing as authorities were trying to ascertain what caused 14 carriages of the train – traveling between the northeastern city of Patna and the central city of Indore – to suddenly roll off the tracks in Pukhrayan, 65 kilometers south of Kanpur city.
Amid scenes of desperation and anguish, survivors were looking for family members and some were also trying to enter the damaged carriages to rescue relatives and collect belongings, said senior railway official Pratap Rai.
“We are using every tactic to save lives but it’s very difficult to cut the metal carriages,” Rai said from the accident site.
With the death toll set to rise further, the derailment could become India’s worst rail tragedy since 2005, when a train was crushed by a rock and another plunged into a river – each killing more than 100 people.
India’s creaking railway system is the world’s fourth largest, ferrying more than 20 million people each day, but it has a poor safety record, with thousands of people dying in accidents every year, including in frequent train derailments.
Suresh Prabhu, India’s Railways Minister, said in a tweet the government would immediately investigate the causes of the derailment and promised accountability with the “strictest possible action,” and compensation for the affected passengers.
Authorities were checking if the air brakes that would have prevented the disaster had failed, but added they would need to look further before concluding the cause of the accident.
MANGLED CARRIAGES
The packed train, operated by the Indian government, derailed in the early hours of Sunday when more than 500 passengers were sleeping, survivors said.
TV footage showed badly mangled blue carriages, with crowds of people and police on top of the wreckage searching for survivors. One carriage was almost lying on its side, and appeared to have been completely torn apart.
Rescue officials with yellow helmets were working their way through the crowds, carrying victims from the mangled wreckage as teams struggled to remove the derailed wagons from the tracks, one of the main transportation routes for goods and passengers in northern India.
“Suddenly I could feel that the carriage was overturning. I immediately held the metal rod near the bathroom door,” said Faizal Khan who was traveling with his wife and two children, all of whom survived the accident.
Another survivor, Rajdeep Tanwar said. “I can see bodies lying near the tracks, everyone is in a state of shock. There is no water or food for us.”
Buses are being pressed into service to help passengers complete their journey, said additional director general Daljeet Singh Choudhary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who started out selling tea outside a train station, has promised to modernize India’s railways and build high-speed engines befitting Asia’s third-largest economy.
By some analyst estimates, the railways need 20 trillion rupees ($293.34 billion) of investment by 2020, and India is turning to partnerships with private companies and seeking loans from other countries to modernize its network.
Last year, Japan agreed to provide $12 billion of soft loans to build India’s first bullet train.
On Sunday Modi took to Twitter to express his condolences.
“Anguished beyond words on the loss of lives due to the derailing of the Patna-Indore express. My thoughts are with the bereaved families,” Modi said.
Written by Reuters
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Girls’ education is a ‘vital issue’ for Afghanistan: Karzai
Former president Hamid Karzai said in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador and special representative, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, that education of girls was a “vital issue” for Afghanistan.
Karzai said he appreciated Iran’s cooperation and its standing with the Afghan people, especially Iran’s contributions to education in Afghanistan.
During the meeting, Karzai said peace and stability in the region are in the interest of all regional countries.
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Afghanistan’s problems caused more damage to Pakistan than 3 wars with India: Durrani
Islamabad’s special envoy for Afghanistan Asif Durrani said on Wednesday that Pakistan has suffered more due to Afghanistan’s internal situation than Pakistan has suffered in three wars with India in terms of blood spilt and finances drained.
Durrani said at a one-day International Conference titled “Pakistan in the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape”, which was organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), that over 80,000 Pakistanis died in the two decades of the War on Terror and that his country was still counting its dead and injured.
“After the withdrawal of NATO forces, it was hoped that peace in Afghanistan would bring peace to the region. However, such expectations were short-lived,” he said.
He also stated that attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group on Pakistan’s border areas increased by 65 percent, while suicide attacks increased by 500 percent.
“The TTP’s enhanced attacks on Pakistan while using Afghan soil have been a serious concern for Pakistan. Another worrying aspect is the participation of Afghan nationals in these attacks,” he said.
Durrani also said Pakistan had suffered geopolitically since the Soviet Union invaded the neighboring country.
“The post-9/11 world order has negatively impacted Pakistan. Apart from losing 80,000 citizens’ lives, including 8,000 law enforcement agency personnel, the country’s economic opportunity cost is estimated at $150 billion,” Durrani said.
Talking about the future outlook for Pakistan in the regional context, Durrani said that while “our eastern neighbor is likely to continue with its anti-Pakistan pursuits, the western border poses an avoidable irritant in the short to medium term.”
However, he said Pakistan can overcome its difficulties with Afghanistan, including the TTP challenge.
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