Indian officials say deadly train crash caused by signal error
India's official investigation into its deadliest rail crash in 20 years has begun after preliminary findings point to signal failure as the likely cause for a collision that killed at least 275 people and injured nearly 1,200.
The disaster struck on Friday, when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped the tracks and hit another passenger train passing in the opposite direction near the district of Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha.
India's Railway Minister said Sunday the cause and people responsible for the crash had been identified, pointing to an electronic signal system without giving further details.
'We have identified the cause of the accident and the people responsible for it,' India's Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told media, but said it was 'not appropriate' to give details before a final investigation report.
Earlier reports cited railway officials as saying that a signalling error had sent the Coromandal Express running south from Kolkata to Chennai onto a side track.
It slammed into a freight train and the wreckage derailed an express running north from India's tech hub Bengaluru to Kolkata that was also passing the site.
Indian Premier Narendra Modi visited the crash site and injured passengers being treated in hospital and said 'no one responsible' would be spared.
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