Rescuers on Monday ended their search for survivors amongst the twisted remains of a derailed train as the death toll from one of India's worst rail disasters rose to 146. Parts of the train were mangled beyond recognition when the Indore-Patna Express derailed, sending carriages crashing into each other in the early hours of Sunday in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Rescuers worked through the night, picking through the wreckage with sniffer dogs in hopes of finding more survivors. But they called off the search on Monday afternoon as the last of the carriages was removed from the tracks. "We recovered eight bodies today and the rescue operations were called off late afternoon. There is no hope for more survivors," said Anil Shekhawat, spokesman for the National Disaster Response Force.
Another 179 people are being treated in hospital, 60 of whom are in a serious condition, a spokesman for Indian railways told AFP. "The rail line has been cleared and some restoration work is on. The line will be fit for traffic in few hours from now," added spokesman Vijay Kumar. At least 2,000 people are believed to have been on the train at the time - many travelling without reserved seats or any ticket at all.
Many of the injured were young children who had become separated from relatives. Doctors were using WhatsApp to try to reunite children with relatives - sharing photos of their unidentified patients with other hospitals in the area via the messaging app. "This way, if anyone from his family or acquaintances was at the other hospital looking for him, we were able to unite them swiftly," A K Srivastava, a senior doctors at one of the local hospitals, told AFP, scrolling through pictures of the injured on his phone. Eight-year-old Sejal Yadav was found by her brother Rahul, 18, thanks to the app.