India train crash survivor recounts: 'We thought we were dead'

Heavy machinery operates as rescue workers search for survivors at the site of a train collision after the accident in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha, India, June 3, 2023. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

BALASORE, India (Reuters) - Ompal Bhatia, a survivor of the three-train crash in India on Friday, had first thought he was dead. When the train he was traveling in went off-track, Bhatia was with three friends on his way to Chennai for work.

The 25-year-old had spent most of the four-hour journey on the Coromandel Express standing. Bhatia, who works in the plywood business, said that just before the trains crashed, leaving nearly 300 dead, some people were getting ready to sleep.