Huge cranes and bulldozers have been brought in to raise the last coach which rescuers had not been able to reach as yet in operations to pull out survivors and the dead from the mangled steel of three trains that derailed one on top of another in a horrific sequence, killing at least 261 people and injuring more than 900 in India’s Odisha’s Balasore district, officials and witnesses said Saturday.
Officials said this coach was buried as another passenger wagon jumped rail on top of it, the death toll is expected to jump once this wagon is brought up.
“The death toll in the Balasore train accident has risen to 261,” said South East Railway spokesperson Aditya Chowdhury on Saturday, adding that “rescue of injured passengers has been completed”.