Brahmanbari (Bangladesh): Two passenger trains collided head on at a station in Eastern Bangladesh early on October 27 killing at least seven people and injuring 30 others, officials said.

Witnesses and fire officials said that eight bodies were recovered from the wreckage, but a railway spokesman in the capital Dhaka said that seven passengers died.

"We have recovered seven bodies and also shifted 30 wounded passengers to two nearby town hospitals," he said.

Hospital officials said that some of the injured were in a serious condition and the death toll could rise.

The accident took place at around 22:30 hours (GMT) at Azampur station on the outskirts of Brahmanbaria town, near the border with India's Tripura state.

Witnesses said that a stationary express train was hit by another on the same track at the station.

The trains were plying between the South Eastern port city of Chittagong and the North Eastern town of Sylhet, a railway official said.

Some station staff fled as Army troops, deployed in an anti-crime drive, and police cordoned off the station, witnesses said.

The spokesman said that the driver of the moving train and two other people had been suspended from duty for "negligence and disregarding signals".

He said that an official investigation had been ordered and added the tracks were being cleared so trains could hopefully resume running in the afternoon.

One of the engines was on top of the other in a mangled state, while nine carriages of the two trains had jumped off the tracks, witnesses at the station said.

Rescue workers pulled out bodies as they cut through the wreckage.