June 24, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 23,1424

MUMBAI, June 23: At least 33 people died on Sunday when a train derailed and crashed at the entrance to a tunnel in western India, railway officials said.

The train crashed late in the night when it hit some boulders that had rolled on to the track due to heavy rains and landslides, the officials said.

Although the death toll had earlier been put at 23, another 10 bodies were pulled out on Monday and rescue operations were continuing into the night.

The train, from the port city of Karwar, crashed about 575kms south of Mumbai, where it was headed.

Railway spokesman Nandu Telang said four coaches of the train had jumped the tracks and one of them had rammed into the coach in front, trapping it against the mountainside.

India has one of the world’s largest railway networks with almost 14,000 trains carrying more than 13 million passengers a day. It has about 300 accidents a year.

Sunday’s accident was the most serious on the western coastal rail corridor, called the Konkan Railway, built across treacherous hills and touted as a major engineering feat when it opened five years ago.—Reuters