Gyaneswari express toll mounts to 141

MIDNAPORE/KOLKATA: The death toll in the Gyaneswari Express disaster in West Midnapore district rose to 141 with 43 more bodies extricated till Saturday night, West Midnapore District Magistrate N S Nigam said.

The bodies were found after the engine of the goods train which had rammed into five of the 13 derailed coaches of the Express yesterday was lifted with the help of cranes, South Eastern Railway sources said.

The bodies were being taken to the Midnapore Medical College Hospital for postmortem, the District Magistrate said.

Around 190 injured people were being treated in different hospitals in Midnapore, Kharagpur, Jhargram and in Kolkata, Nigam said.

He said rescue work, halted because of rain, will resume tomorrow, even as rescuers feared more bodies might be trapped under the S-6 coach.

The tracks could not be cleared till late in the evening as the derailed coaches had not been removed.