KOLKATA, India (AFP) – A speeding express rammed into the back of a stationary passenger train in eastern India on Monday, killing more than 50 people and trapping others in the wreckage, officials said.

The standing train was waiting to leave a station in Birbhum district, around 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the West Bengal state capital Kolkata, when the express slammed into its rear carriages.

The force of the impact lifted one wagon clear off the tracks and left it mounted on an overhead passenger bridge. An estimated 120 people were injured in the collision, 40 of them seriously, local police said.

Bodies and badly injured travellers were being pulled from the crumpled mass of steel by emergency services and members of a huge crowd of onlookers who had gathered around the site of the accident.

“The death toll has crossed 50. We are still struggling to pull out some bodies,” senior police officer Humayun Kabir told AFP by telephone from the scene.

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BEIJING – Rescuers found two bodies in a flooded coal shaft in northwestern China and 11 miners remained trapped Monday — a reminder of the dangers of an industry that claimed the lives of 36 others just days ago.

More than 100 rescuers pumped water out of the mine shaft in Jinta, a county in Gansu province, which was under construction at the time, the official Xinhua news agency said. Three miners were lifted to safety after water gushed into the mine Sunday.

Calls to the local government rang unanswered Monday.

On Saturday, 28 miners were killed when an electrical cable caught fire inside a coal shaft in northern Shaanxi province. There were no survivors. The fire happened at the privately owned Xiaonangou coal mine in Sangshuping town.

The coal mine’s owner, Guo Yungang, was detained by police, Xinhua said. His company, Xinxin Mining Co. Ltd., tried to expand the mine in order to increase output from 30,000 tons to 90,000 tons. Rescuers retrieved the bodies of at least five miners and an investigation was under way.

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CALCUTTA, India – A speeding express train collided with a passenger train at a station in eastern India early Monday, mangling the carriages and killing at least 35 people, railway police said.

The crash happened at about 2 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express slammed into the stationary Bananchal Express as it was leaving the platform at Sainthia station, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Calcutta.

Television footage showed twisted metal. The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car flew into the air and landed on an overpass above the tracks. Local residents climbed through the debris searching for survivors.

A railway police officer said 35 bodies were recovered and more appeared to be trapped in the wreckage. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Accidents are common on India’s sprawling rail network, one of the world’s largest, with most blamed on poor maintenance.

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BEIJING – Rescue operations were under way for 13 miners trapped underground in a flooded coal shaft in northwestern China on Sunday — a reminder of the dangers of an industry that claimed the lives of 36 others a day earlier.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 16 workers were inside the shaft when water gushed into the mine in Jinta, a county in Gansu province Sunday morning, and three men were safely lifted out. But 13 men remained trapped, according to an official from the State Administration of Work Safety who declined to give his name, as is customary.

On Saturday, 28 miners were killed when an electrical cable caught fire inside a coal shaft in northern Shaanxi province, a government official said. There were no survivors. The fire happened at the privately owned Xiaonangou coal mine in Sangshuping town, the official said.

The coal mine’s owner, Guo Yungang, has been detained by police, Xinhua said. His company, Xinxin Mining Co. Ltd., had been trying to expand the mine in order to increase output from 30,000 tons to 90,000 tons. Rescuers retrieved the bodies of five miners by Sunday morning, and an investigation was under way.

In the third mining accident, eight coal miners died when a blaze engulfed a mine in central Henan province Saturday morning, Xinhua reported. The incident at a mine operated by the Zhengzhou Coal Industry Group was also being investigated.

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BEIJING (AFP) – At least 28 miners were killed in a coal mine accident in northwest China, Xinhua news agency reported Sunday, the latest in a series of deadly incidents.

The accident occurred in Hancheng city, Shaanxi province, on Saturday evening killing all 28 workers in the pit at the time.

Xinhua did not give the cause of the accident, but a local news report said that a fire started among electrical cables in the mine shaft.

The incident took place at the Xiaonangou coal mine in Sangshuping township, the Huasheng Daily, a local newspaper, said on its website.

An investigation is under way, the report said, while local authorities have ordered province-wide inspections at coal mines to avert further accidents.

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