【英语国际】印度列车脱轨事故死亡人数上升至145人

The death toll from a train derailment Friday in India's West Bengal state that the railways minister blamed on Maoist rebels rose to 145, an Indian official said.

Shubhanjan Das, the senior district official, said after completion of the rescue operation Saturday night that the number of fatalities was nearly double the 73 reported on Friday night.

More than 250 injured passengers were being treated at three local hospitals and a few in critical conditions have been taken to Kolkata, the state capital, for treatment.

The passenger train, the Gyaneshwari Express 2102, was traveling from Kolkata, in eastern India, to a suburb of Mumbai, on India's west coast, when it derailed and collided with a cargo train.

A 46-centimeter section of track was missing, the Home Ministry in New Delhi said.

The Maoist rebels said neither their group nor a local outfit affiliated with them caused the incident. 'Killing innocent people by sabotaging a railway line is not our agenda,' they said Saturday.

On Sunday, the rebels said they want an 'independent investigation' of the incident by 'intellectuals, scientists, engineers and unofficial experts.'

The rebels, known as Naxalites after the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal where the insurgency was hatched in 1967, have been stepping up their attacks recently and have begun targeting civilians as well as police and government paramilitary forces. The Maoists dominate swaths of central India's impoverished states.

Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee, who arrived at the scene in Paschim Medinipur Friday morning, said Naxalite rebels damaged the railway tracks, causing the train to derail, and timed the attack so it would collide with a cargo train coming in the opposite direction.

'It was a calculated game,' she said on television.

The district police said they found posters of a local group that supports the Naxalites at the site but couldn't say definitively that Naxalites were behind the sabotage.

印度官员说，上周五印度孟加拉邦火车脱轨事件的死亡人数已上升至145人。印度铁道部长指责毛派反叛分子应对此次事件负责。

周六夜间，救援行动结束之后，地区高级官员达斯(Shubhanjan Das)说死亡人数是周五夜间报道的73人的近两倍。

Associated Press印度救援人员上周六在事故现场搜寻遇难者遗体。超过250名受伤乘客在当地的三家医院接受了治疗，少数伤势严重的乘客被送往邦首府加尔各答进行治疗。

出事火车为Gyaneshwari Express 2102次，从印度东部的加尔各答开往西海岸的孟买市郊。途中，列车脱轨并与一列货车相撞。

印度内政部说，长达46厘米的铁轨丢失。

毛派反叛分子说该组织及其下属的地方团体与此次事件无关。周六他们说，我们没有通过破坏铁路杀害无辜人民的计划。

周日，反叛分子说他们希望由知识分子、科学家、工程师和非官方专家对此次事件进行独立调查。

1967年，这个反叛组织在印度孟加拉邦纳萨尔巴里村密谋叛乱，因此得名纳萨尔派分子。近期其袭击活动已经升级，袭击目标开始针对平民、警察和政府准军事力量。毛派反叛分子在印度中部的贫困地区占有优势。

印度铁道部长班纳吉(Mamata Banerjee)于周五早上抵达位于Paschim Medinipur的事故现场。她说纳萨尔派反叛分子破坏了铁轨，导致列车脱轨，并控制了袭击的时间以使列车可与相向而来的货车相撞。

她在电视上说，这是一个精心计算过的阴谋。

该地区警方说在事故现场发现了支持纳萨尔派分子的当地团体的海报，但不能肯定地说是纳萨尔派分子策划了此次袭击。