Ramlingayapalli (AP): Twenty people were killed and 87 injured when nine bogies of Hyderabad-Bangalore Express derailed in this remote village in Karnool district of Andhra Pradesh just after midnight on December 21.

Andhra Pradesh Minister for Higher Technical Education Anjayenalu escaped unhurt when the Bangalore bound train jumped rails 40 minutes after midnight at a spot where the track was found broken, railway officials said. It was Anjayenalu who informed the authorities about the accident.

Two of the bogies turned upside down and a couple more lay on their sides while some others were badly mangled with one of them mounting on another.

Eyewitnesses said 20 people were killed. Additional superintendent of police K Prabhakar Rao put the figure at 18 killed on the spot and one passenger dying in hospital.

According to Rao, the dead included 15 men and four women. Of the 87 injured, six were seriously hurt and 57 suffered minor injures. Six bodies have been identified so far.

Driver Koteshwar Rao, who survived the accident, told reporters at nearby Pendekalu railway station that the derailment took place near a culvert and two of the bogies fell into it.

South Central Railway general manager S N Singla said preliminary investigations showed that the railway line was broken. The commissioner for railway safety South Central region is probing the accident, he added.

PTI