Summary At least 20 people were killed when a train ploughed into a packed rickshaw in northern India.
NEW DELHI (AFP) - An express train ploughed into a packed rickshaw in northern India on Monday, killing 20 people, eight of them children, a report said.
The train was going at full speed when it hit the autorickshaw (motorised rickshaw) at a manned railway crossing in the northern state of Bihar, the Press Trust of India reported, citing local police.
All the victims were from the same family and some had been mutilated beyond recognition. Others had been dragged some distance by the speeding train, the news agency's report said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condolences to the victims' relatives after the crash, which also seriously injured two people.
Deadly train accidents are common on India's railways, whose vast and rundown network carries tens of millions of people daily.
In 2012 a government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on the network, describing the deaths as an annual "massacre" due mainly to poor safety standards.
Last month 20 people were killed, most of them young children, when a passenger train rammed into a school bus in southern India.
The train collided with the bus as it drove across an unmanned level crossing in the state of Telangana.
In May, 26 people were killed when a passenger express travelling in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh ploughed into a stationary freight train.
An express train ploughed into a crowd of Hindu pilgrims in eastern India in August last year, killing 37.
