NEW DELHI: At least two people were killed and many feared injured when a Bangalore-bound train derailed in southern India on Wednesday morning, a railways official told AFP.

V.J. Accamma, a spokesman for Southern Railways, confirmed the death of at least two people in the accident, which occurred just after dawn in the small village of Chitteri in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

“At least two persons have been killed, we are still trying to verify the numbers of injured,” Accamma told AFP.

“Rescue workers have been sent to help people after the train derailed around 5:50 this morning,” he added.

The train was on its way from the town of Muzaffarpur in eastern India to the suburb of Yeshwantpur in the southern technology hub of Bangalore, he said.

India's colonial-era train system has a notoriously bad accident record.

The country's worst rail accident occurred in 1981 when a train plunged into a river in the eastern state of Bihar, killing an estimated 800 people.

Derailments, collisions and other accidents are also common.