At least 20 people are feared dead after a passenger train derailed and hit a stationary goods train in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, officials say. Six coaches of the Gorakhdham Express went off the rails and ploughed into the freight train at Chureb railway station on Monday morning.

Rescuers are searching through the mangled coaches, with reports saying a number of people are trapped. The train was travelling from Gorakhpur town to Hisar in Haryana state.

“A medical train with doctors and paramedics has reached the site of the crash,” railway spokesman in Delhi Anil Saxena told the BBC. “We’ve also sent machines to cut the coaches to reach the passengers who are still trapped.”

India’s railway network operates 9,000 passenger trains and carries some 18 million passengers every day. There have been numerous train accidents in recent years, killing hundreds of people.

In December, 26 people died in a fire which engulfed a carriage of the Nanded-Bangalore Express while it was travelling through southern Andhra Pradesh state.

In August, 28 people were killed after being hit by an express train while crossing the tracks in the state of Bihar.

-BBC

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