Visakhapatnam: The number of casualties in the train accident on the Howrah-Chennai line in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh rose to 13 while 50 people were injured, Superintendent of Police M Deepika said on Monday.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will be visiting the accident site and also those injured and undergoing treatment in Vizianagaram, official sources said.
Officials of the East Coast Railway (ECR) said at around 7 pm on Sunday, the Palasa Passenger train hit the Rayagada Passenger train from behind at Kantakapalli, about 40 km from here, causing three coaches to derail.
According to media reports, the locomotive pilots of Rayagada Passenger and a guard of the Palasa train also died in the accident.
When contacted, ECR Divisional Railway Manager Saurabh Prasad confirmed the death of the guard.
He further said the rescue operations are still going on and track clearance operations are in full swing.
Prasad told PTI that all the affected coaches have been looked into and the locomotive is being lifted now to see for a final round of checking by the NDRF if any bodies are still trapped inside the coaches or the locomotive or in the mangled mess.
Five coaches plus the locomotive got mangled. Three coaches were of the train which was ahead (Palasa Passenger) and two coaches and the locomotive were of the Rayagada passenger, the DRM said.
He noted that the clearance of the tracks is also underway. As part of the clearance work, Prasad said two coaches were taken away and the third coach is also being tackled presently, adding that train movement could be restored today.
He observed that traffic on the down line towards Kolkata could be restored before noon and on the up line towards Vijayawada by sometime in the afternoon.
Further, Prasad said four OHE masts, railway electrical infrastructure, have been damaged at the accident site, spanning all the three lines.
Following the accident, several trains have either been cancelled or diverted or rescheduled by East Coast Railway and South Central Railway.
Biswajit Sahu, Chief Public Relations Officer of the ECR, said this morning that 11 people were killed and around 50 were injured in the incident.
Sahu had said train number 08532 (Visakhapatnam-Palasa passenger) and 08504 (Visakhapatnam-Rayagada passenger special) were involved in the accident, adding that the Rayagada passenger had overshot the signal.
Two coaches of the Visakhapatnam-Palasa passenger train from the rear and the locomotive of the Visakhapatnam-Rayagada passenger train derailed, the official added.
However, according to the police, the death toll rose to 13 on Monday morning.
A senior railway official said the injured had been shifted to hospitals in Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram.
Expressing shock over the incident, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy also instructed officials to pay an ex-gratia amount of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of the deceased and Rs 2 lakh each to the injured from the state.
He also announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each for the injured from other states, according to an official release.
The ECR has set up helplines.
PTI