BANGALORE, May 22: At least 25 people were killed and 45 injured early on Tuesday when a passenger train slammed into a stationary goods train in southern India, rail officials said.

The sleeper train crashed into the parked goods train at Penneconda station in Andhra Pradesh state as it was travelling overnight to Bangalore, the information technology hub and capital of Karnataka state.

“The number of deaths now is 25 and 45 are injured of which some have minor injuries but 10 are grievously hurt,” railway ministry spokeswoman Chandralekha Mukherjee said in New Delhi.

The Andhra Pradesh state police said the bodies of 16 of the victims travelling in a carriage behind the engine were badly burnt as it caught fire following the collision.

“The coach was meant only for women but it is not possible to say if the bodies are women or men as they are charred,” Charu Sinha, deputy inspector general of Andhra Pradesh police, said by telephone from the crash site.

“There are no more bodies in the wreckage as (rescue and salvage) operations are now over,” she said.

A police statement said bodies were taken out after rescuers sliced through the crushed carriages with mechanical cutters and used cranes brought from Bangalore.

“It appears that the driver of the passenger train overshot a signal and hit the goods train, but we are awaiting the results of an inquiry,” Mukherjee said.

Television footage from the scene showed mangled, upturned coaches with rescue workers carrying injured passengers out on stretchers by torchlight before dawn.

“When the train stopped with a loud bang, I got down to see burning passengers crying for help,” Munijayendra, 25, who uses only one name, told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

“I will not be able to sleep for many days to come as their cries will be ringing in my ears,” he said. “The worst part is we were helpless as the heat was just unbearable”.—AFP