SAINTHIA, India – The 22-year-old was asleep on the overnight train, headed to his distant job at a call center, when an enormous jolt awakened him and his coach flipped. He lay with his leg broken for five hours, crushed under the dead bodies of other passengers as he waited for help.
The powerful crash between two express trains at a station in eastern India early Monday morning killed 61 people and injured scores more. The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car was thrust onto an overpass above the tracks.
Accidents are relatively common on India's sprawling rail network, which is one of the world's largest but lacks modern signaling and communication systems. Most crashes are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.
It was the second major train crash in West Bengal state in two months. On May 28, a passenger train derailed and was hit by an cargo train, killing 145 people. Authorities blamed sabotage by Maoist rebels for that crash.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to the site of Monday's crash and raised the possibility it was another case of sabotage. But there no immediate indication that rebels were to blame, and railway officials said the cause of the crash was unclear.