11:00 am: Additional DG Railways VSK Komdi has said that efforts are on to identify those who died in the fire in the S-11 coach of the Chennai-bound Tamil Nadu Express in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Some of the bodies have been badly charred due to the fire. Watch the video here.
10:30 am : Families whose relatives may have been travelling on board the Tamil Nadu Express in the S-11 coach can email details of their family members to the Government Railway Police at apgrp@yahoo.com.
Police authorities have requested relatives of those who may have been injured to send them details so that they can identify the victims and those who have been admitted to the hospital with injuries.
10:10 am : The district collector of Nellore has confirmed that the death toll will be between 30 to 35 due to the fire in a coach of the Tamil Nadu Express.
Twenty-six passengers were rescued from the coach S-11 which was completely gutted, PTI quoted Nellore Collector B Sridhar as saying.
Two of the injured were in a serious condition, he said. "The death toll in the affected coach will be around 30-35," he said.
However, an Associated Press report quoted Sridhar as saying that the death toll from the fire had risen to 47.
"There was a short circuit near the toilet and the train was moving at a speed of 110 kms per hour. It was going to Chennai from Delhi. All the passengers were asleep when the fire broke out at 4:30 AM. People were not able to come out immediately," he said.
10:00 am: Railway officials have said an compensation of Rs five lakh for relatives of those who died in the incident. The Hindu has spoken to some of the victims of the fire and describe waking up to screams.
"I woke up after hearing loud screams. All I could see was black smoke," Y Sampath, a software engineer at Syntel who was travelling aboard the train with his sister, told the newspaper. Sampath escaped through one of the doors that had not been locked. However, his sister who is also a software professional was missing.
The report also lists the names of some of those injured who have been admitted in the hospital: Verma from Raghav Nagar; Venkata Koteshwara Rao from Vijayawada; Hussain from Tirunelveli; Raghavan from Chennai; KK Sunil Kumar, from Delhi; Harsha from Chennai; and Sandeep Agnihotri from Jaipur.
0950 am: A PTI report confirms that 15 passengers have been confirmed as dead and 25 others injured.
Railway officials said bodies of 15 passengers have been recovered from the coach.
25 of the injured have been admitted to a hospital.
0940 am: The rescue train from Chennai has left for Nellore in order to help identify the passengers who were injured or killed in the accident.
An NDTV report says that the doors of the coach may have jammed which resulted in people being trapped after the fire broke out.
The coach reportedly had 17 passengers who boarded the train at Delhi and 11 who boarded it at Bhopal.
The report also indicates that a station master at Nellore may have spotted the fire and got the train to stop.
0910 am: A rescue train is leaving from Chennai to Nellore to transport the relatives of passengers who may have been injured in the accident, reports CNN IBN.
Railway officials say the death toll could be between 25 to 30 people. Five deaths have been confirmed so far, railway officials told the channel.
Rescue operations are still on.
19 coaches of the train have been taken to next station while five coaches have been taken to Nellore, a spokesperson for Southern Railways said.
All the trains on that route are operational now, the spokesperson said.
9:00 am : Several people were killed and others injured after the Delhi-Chennai Tamil Nadu Express caught fire near Nellore in the early hours of Monday, officials said.
It was initially reported by the IANS that five people were killed, though the toll was likely to rise. However, latest Times of India reports suggest that at least 25 people have died in the mishap and the toll is likely to go up.
A fire broke out around 5.30 am in the S11 compartment minutes after the Chennai-bound train left Nellore railway station in south Andhra Pradesh, about 450 km from here.
Nellore district collector B. Sridhar said five bodies were brought out while 15 injured were shifted to hospital.
While 15 passengers are believed to have jumped down from the burning compartment, there was no official word about others. A total of 72 passengers were travelling in the compartment.
A witness told reporters that many were trapped inside when the flames engulfed the compartment. "I was lucky to come out but many passengers could not escape as two doors were jammed and the smoke spread fast," said Sudhir.
Fire fighting personnel extinguished the fire and rescue workers were using gas cutters and other equipment to retrieve the bodies.
Ambulances were pressed into service to shift the injured to hospital.
Top officials including district collector and superintendent of police rushed to the scene and supervised rescue and relief work.
The district collector said burning bogie was detached to prevent the fire from spreading to other compartments.
He quoted some witnesses as saying that the fire was caused by short circuit near the toilet.
As the train was not moving at full speed, some passengers either entered the adjoining compartment or jumped down. However, those sleeping on the upper berths could not escape as the smoke spread fast and even the doors were not opening.
Helpline numbers at Nellore: 0861-2345863, 864, 865, 866 and 0866-2576924; At New Delhi Station: 011-23342954, 23341072, 23341074.
