At least 96 people killed in train accident in India

At least 96 people have lost their lives in a train accident in India. The death toll has nearly doubled in the past hours. According to AFP, Daljit Singh Chaudhary, a police commander in Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, said, "Unfortunately, the number of dead has now reached 96 (up from the initial 63 victims)." Rescuers are still searching for individuals who may be trapped in the wreckage of the train. In initial reports, an Indian railway official told Reuters that at least 80 people were injured; meanwhile, "many" of the victims are still at the scene, and rescue teams are working to save them. Suresh Prabhu, India's Minister of Railways, stated on Twitter that the government will immediately investigate the cause or causes of the accident. He himself has headed to the site. The incident occurred on the Patna-Indore train line, which connects Patna in northeastern India to Indore, a commercial center in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Fatal accidents on railways are not new. In the same Uttar Pradesh province, a similar accident last year claimed the lives of 39 people and left 150 injured. India has nearly 65,000 kilometers of railway track, making it the fourth-largest country in this regard after the United States, Russia, and China. More than 20 million people travel by train in India every day.