Death toll mounts to 110 in West Bengal train attack
SARDIHA: Rescue workers recovered more bodies on Saturday in the train wreck blamed on Maoist saboteurs, with fears that the final death toll could exceed 150.
More than 30 hours after a Mumbai-bound Howrah-Mumbai Gyaneshwari Express careened off the tracks at 1.15am between Khemashuli and Sardiha stations, near the Maoist stronghold of Jhargram, emergency teams were still trying to cut their way into sections of the mangled wreckage.
"So far, 110 bodies have been recovered," West Bengal police inspector general Surajit Kar Purakayastha said.
One badly crushed carriage has yet to be fully searched and as many as 50 passengers are still unaccounted for. The precise cause of the derailment in the early hours of Friday morning was still unclear.
Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee said Maoists had blown up the track with explosives, while police pointed to evidence that a section of rail had been manually removed. Senior police officials on Friday had laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Maoists, saying several leaflets had been left by them at the site of the disaster.
But Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai suggested there was still room for inquiry.
"It's likely to be them (Maoists). There is no one else in the area. But we are still checking," Pillai said.
More than 200 people were injured, some of them critically.
