Railway collision in eastern India kills 15, injures several

KOLKATA (Reuters) -- A freight train smashed into the rear of a stationary passenger train in India's West Bengal state on Monday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities blamed on a disregarded signal.

Media showed images of the pile-up, with containers from the freight train strewn nearby, and one car left nearly vertical after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signaling error caused one of India's worst rail crashes.

At least 15 bodies have been pulled from the mangled cars, Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in the eastern state's district of Darjeeling, the site of the accident, told Reuters.

Nearly 30 people were injured, and rescue teams from the police and national disaster response force were working with doctors and residents of the area to clear debris from the derailed car, Roy added.

The freight train hit the Kanchanjunga Express traveling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, driving three cars of the passenger train off the rails.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board at the time.

Rescuers used iron rods and ropes to work free one car of the passenger train that had been swept upward to lodge on the roof of the freight train by the impact of the collision.

The dead included the driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train, Jaya Varma Sinha, the head of the railway board that runs the countrywide network, told reporters.

The accident happened after the driver of the freight train disregarded a signal and hit the rear end of the express train, Sinha added.

Rescue work has been completed, Sinha said, while authorities were working to restore traffic, and