PTI

Bhubaneshwar, Jun 12: Three persons were killed and 21 injured, when 14 coaches of the 2659 DN Howrah-Nagercoil Superfast Express jumped the tracks at Duwada, 20 km from Visakhapatnam, on Monday night.

“There might have been more injuries, mostly minor in nature, but we are referring to those who had been hospitalised,” East Coast Railway CPRO BK Mishra told PTI on Tuesday morning. The deceased had been identified as The deceased were identified as M Prasad Rao (51) from Visakhapatnam, and Virendra Jain (21), and Sashi Swain (30), both from Orissa. All the injured hailed from Bhubaneswar in Orissa.

The injured were shifted to King George and Railway hospitals in Visakhapatnam and senior railway, civil and police officials were at site supervising rescue operations, railway sources said in Hyderabad.

The satyam accident helpline service had rushed five ambulances to the area for shifting the injured to various hospitals, a helpline official told PTI. He said rescue personnel were facing difficulties due to the area being dark while APSRTC buses were requisitioned to take the remaining passengers to their destinations.

Railway officials said the derailment occurred at around 11:15 pm. The bogies are suspected to have jumped the tracks due to some "technical fault" even though the train was running at a low speed at the time.

However, about a dozen trains between Visakhapatnam and other coastal cities like Vijayawada, Machilipatnam, Tenali, Guntur and Kakinada have been cancelled.

A few long distance trains between Howrah-Chennai, Howrah-Hyderabad, Bhubhaneswar-Mumbai and Puri-Tirupati were running behind schedule, the officials said.

Efforts are on to remove the derailed coaches with cranes and the rail track is likely to open for traffic late on Tuesday or by early Wednesday.

A control room had been opened at Visakhapatnam to provide assistance on telephone no 0891-2575083.