At least 12 people were killed and 11 injured in India on Wednesday evening after they left a train and were hit by another on the tracks, local authorities said.
The passengers had disembarked after rumors of a fire on their train spread panic among those on board, authorities said.
The accident happened around 5 p.m. in Maharashtra state, about 170 miles northeast of Mumbai, said Ashok Pawar, a police inspector at Pachora police station. Passengers were on board the Pushpak Express, a train traveling from Lucknow in northern India to Mumbai in the west, when word spread on board of a fire, he said .
Panic ensued and people began leaving the train when it finally stopped, Mr. Pawar said. They were hit by another train, the Karnataka Express, passing on an adjacent track.
It was unclear how many passengers had been on the Pushpak Express. Mr Pawar said the train had been packed with people, many of them migrant workers traveling for work. The accident, he said, left victims with serious injuries.
Authorities said they were looking into the episode.
“We will investigate exactly the reason, whether there was a real fire or it was a rumor spread by a mischievous person,” said Maheswar Reddy, the superintendent of police of Jalgaon district, where the accident occurred, told reporters.
Mr. Pawar, the inspector, said seven people who died were from Nepal and four were from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where Lucknow is located. An agency remained unidentified and the families of the victims were now in Jalgaon, he said.
Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra’s top government official, said on Wednesday evening that eight ambulances had been sent to the scene. The state government would offer financial assistance to the victims’ families, he said on social media, and would cover the expenses of those injured.
The accident raised more questions about the safety of train travel in India, where millions of people rely on a vast but accident-prone rail network for transportation, particularly in rural areas.
