A train crash in eastern India that killed more than 300 people and injured hundreds was caused by a fault in an electronic signaling system that caused the train to change tracks, India's railway minister said today.
"Who did it and what is the reason will be revealed by the investigation," Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said in an interview with New Delhi Television.
Authorities are working to clear the remains of two passenger trains that derailed Friday night in the Balasore district of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, in one of the country's worst rail accidents in decades.
India's PTI news agency earlier reported that a preliminary investigation revealed that a signal was given to the Coromandel Express train to enter the main track and that the signal was later switched off. The train entered the second track, known as the bypass, and ran into a freight train parked there, the agency said.
15 bodies were pulled out of the damaged wagons last night, and during the night efforts continued to use cranes to remove the locomotive that fell on one of the wagons. No bodies were found in the locomotive and the work was completed this morning, said the Director General of Odisha Fire and Emergency Services.
The accident came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused on modernizing India's railway network from the British colonial era.
India has become the most populous country in the world with 1,42 billion people.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur each year in the world's largest single-governed rail network.
Most railway accidents in India are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.
More than 12 million people travel on 14.000 trains across India every day, on 64.000 kilometers of tracks.
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