A hospital in India has been likened to a chaotic battlefield after a devastating train crash which killed 300 and injured more than 900 people.
Doctors are overwhelmed by patients, many of whom have severe injuries after the crash.
The passenger trains were carrying 2,296 people between them when they crashed on Friday night.
A survivor, Gura, aged 24, was still in shock and excruciating pain after the crash. He recalled the moment a huge jolt reverberated through his body as the two trains collided.
He told Sky News: “We were standing near the doors.
“The two carriages crushed us. We were four of us. I felt throttled as I was thrown out of the carriage and got out.
“I got hurt on my head, arms and legs. It pains.”
The train derailment was caused by an error in the electronic signaling system which led to one of the trains wrongly changing tracks, India’s railways minister said Sunday.
“Who has done it and what is the reason will come out of an investigation,” Ashwini Vaishnaw said in an interview with New Delhi Television network.
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Authorities are working around the clock to clear the mangled wreckage in Balasore district of eastern Odisha state, in one of the country’s deadliest rail accidents in decades.
The collision flipped Coromandel Express’s coaches onto another track, causing the incoming Yesvantpur-Howrah Express from the opposite side to derail, leading to a three-train collision.
The accident occurred at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on the modernisation of the British colonial-era railroad network in India.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world.
Chaotic scenes saw rescuers attempting to break open doors and windows using cutting torches to save people trapped inside the rail cars.
India’s Prime Minister visited the crash site on Saturday to examine the relief effort and talk to rescue officials. He also visited a hospital where he asked doctors about the treatments being given to the injured, and spoke to some of the patients.
He said the government would do its utmost to help them and strictly punish anyone found responsible.
In 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst train accidents in India. In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
Most train accidents in India are blamed on human error or outdated signalling equipment.