80 killed as Maoists derail train in India

Maoist rebels derailed a high-speed train packed with sleeping passengers into the path of a freight train in eastern India yesterday, killing at least 80 people, police said.

It was the deadliest Maoist attack in recent memory and is likely to ramp up pressure on the government to consider calls for deploying the military in its fight against the rebels.

Police warned the death toll could rise further with more bodies feared trapped in the mangled wreckage after 13 carriages of the Mumbai-bound express from Kolkata careened off the tracks in a remote area of West Bengal.

Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee said the train had been derailed by a "severe bomb blast", but officials said they were also looking at evidence that metal plates used to secure adjoining sections of track had been removed.

"It is a clear case of sabotage. The Maoists have done it," West Bengal police chief Bhupinder Singh told reporters at the crash site. He said Maoist leaflets had been found scattered by the tracks.

The Press Trust of India said it had received a call claiming responsibility by the Maoist-backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), although a PCPA spokesman later contacted the news agency to deny the group's involvement.

"The death toll has risen to 80 and we are still recovering more bodies," West Bengal police inspector general Surajit Kar Purakayastha told AFP at the site.

More than 200 people were reported injured, some of them critically.

Four of the carriages that slammed into an oncoming goods train were badly crushed and flipped on their sides leaving body parts clearly visible amid the twisted metal.

Rescue workers with bolt cutters struggled to free anyone still alive inside.

One survivor, Vinayak Sadna, said he had been sleeping when his carriage lurched violently to one side and then flipped over, flinging passengers around the compartment.