India Crash Kills 27

[zardoz]

NEW DELHI - Two passenger trains collided head-on on a stretch of rural track in northern India on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people and injuring 36, officials said. Many of the injured were in critical condition and were battling to survive at an army hospital, said railway spokesman Devender Sandhu.

A "communications snag" between two stations masters apparently caused the crash, with an express train and a local train allowed to travel on the same track toward one another, said Dharam Singh, the top railway official in the area where the accident occurred.

"We will order an inquiry. Only then will we come to know who was at fault," Singh said in a telephone interview.

The accident occurred in a rural area south of the village of Mirthal, between the cities of Pathankot and Jalandhar in India's northern Punjab province, about 180 miles northwest of New Delhi.


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