'Wailing for help': passengers and bystanders tell of India train crash ...

The carriages from three separate trains sat piled high in an entangled wreck. Some lay sideways, others had been thrown so high into the air on impact that they had fallen back to earth twisted and upside down.

A line of dozens of bodies covered in white sheets were laid out next to the wreckage waiting for vehicles – ambulances, local cars, even tractors – to take them away to local hospitals. Passengers’ possessions lay scattered around them, shoes and toys and suitcases thrown open.

This was the aftermath of one of the deadliest train crashes in India in almost two decades, when on Friday evening the Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata in West Bengal to Chennai in Tamil Nadu, collided with a freight train in the eastern state of Odisha. The freight train in turn derailed some carriages of the Howrah Superfast Express train, which was travelling in the opposite direction.

As of Saturday morning the death toll stood at 280, with 900 more injured, but the authorities said it was likely to rise as rescue efforts continued with thousands deployed to the scene to help. Rescue dogs and metal cutters were used to try to locate and reach those trapped in the mangled carriages.

About 10 of the 23 coaches that made up the Coromandel Express were severely damaged, and two carriages of the Howrah Superfast Express train overturned. Those who had been on board the colliding trains described the horror.

Speaking to an Indian news channel, one survivor said he had been asleep but was awoken as his carriage derailed. “Some 10 to 15 people fell over me,” he said. “I injured my hand and neck. When I got out of the train, I saw limbs scattered all around, a leg here, a hand there. Someone’s face was disfigured.”

Gobinda Mondal, a labourer from Chennai, was sitting in the first coach of the Coromandel Express that derailed. “There was a sudden crash and the coach I was in got derailed at a very high speed. It skidded for some distance,” he said, describing how he had pushed his way through a broken carriage window to escape. “I could see some injured people inside the coach asking for help. One of them was complaining of pain in the chest.”

Subhankar Ruidas, a passenger on the Howrah express, said his carriage had not been damaged in the incident but said he had felt a “a tremor-like feeling when our train hit the Coromandel Express”.

Local people who heard the screech of brakes and the terrible sound of the trains colliding rushed to the scene and worked to pull passengers out from the wreckage. Ashok Samal, a shopkeeper, told the Hindustan Times he heard the crash and ran immediately to the tracks.

“There were loud shrieks and blood all over,” he said. “Several persons in the trapped bogies were wailing to help them, I saw several bodies trapped under the upturned coaches.”