More Than 30 Dead in India Train Derailment

Rescuers searched through the wreckage of a packed express train for people trapped inside after it derailed in northern India on Sunday, killing at least 31 people and injuring 100 others, officials said.

The Kalka Mail train was on its way to Kalka, in the foothills of the Himalayas, from Howrah, a station near Kolkata in eastern India, when 12 coaches and the engine jumped the tracks at Malwan station, near the town of Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh state, senior railway official A.K. Jain said.The cause of the derailment was not immediately clear but it appeared that the driver applied the emergency brakes, Jain said.

At least 31 people were killed and rescue workers pulled at least 100 injured passengers out of the wreckage, said Brij Lal, a state police official.Late Sunday night, a second train derailed in the northeastern state of Assam, injuring at least 100 people, said S.K. Roy, a local magistrate.Local police suspect that a remote control-triggered bomb caused four coaches of the Gauhati-Puri Express to be thrown off the tracks in the town of Rangiya, about 30 miles west of the state's capital, Gauhati, Roy said.S. Hajong, a local railways spokesman, said two of the four coaches plunged into a pond and casualties are feared.Roy did not blame any rebel group and no one has taken responsibility for the attack so far. More than 30 groups in northeastern India have been fighting for decades for independence or wide autonomy in the region, about 1,000 miles east of New Delhi.