An Indian passenger train has derailed and overturned several of its cars, killing at least two people and injuring 35 others with rescue and relief efforts ongoing.
The Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express, a 22-car passenger service that runs for 2,640km derailed near the northern Hindu holy city of Ayodhya.
"Two people have died," Indian Railways spokesman Pankaj Kumar Singh told AFP.
Uttar Pradesh state relief commissioner Naveen Kumar told AFP that another 35 were injured, three of them seriously.
"Two or three who were critically injured have been referred to Gonda district hospital," he added.
At least four carriages had overturned at the site of the accident in Gonda district, broadcaster NDTV reported.
Footage aired by the network showed passengers standing on top of a derailed compartment that had crashed onto its side while others milled about the wreckage.
A team of medics had been rushed to the site.
Antiquated rail system
India's railway network is the main form of travel in the vast country, but it is poorly funded and deadly accidents often occur.
India has launched a $30 billion railway infrastructure modernisation in a bid to boost the economy and connectivity.
But analysts say that while accidents have reduced over time, India's antiquated rail system still has a long way to go.
An average of 20,000 people died each year between 2017 and 2021 in rail accidents, collisions, derailments and other causes, according to official records.
Defective tracks, poor maintenance and old signalling kit combined with human error were the main cause of derailments, a report by India's top audit authority said.
Last year nearly 300 people were killed when a passenger train and a stationary goods train collided, with the derailed compartments then striking another fast-moving passenger service.
India's worst-ever rail accident occurred in 1981, when a cyclone blew a train off its tracks and into a river in the state of Bihar, leaving 800 dead and more than 100 injured.
Indian Railways, the world's fourth-largest rail network, runs some 14,000 trains daily with 8,000 locomotives over a system of tracks some 64,000km long.
The trains carry more than 21 million people each day.
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