India investigates rail disaster as trains crawl through crash site

Policemen walk on rail tracks near damaged coaches at the site of a train collision following the accident in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha, India, June 5, 2023. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

KHARAGPUR, India (Reuters) - The official investigation into India's deadliest rail crash in over two decades began on Monday after preliminary findings pointed to signal failure as the likely cause for a collision that killed at least 275 people and injured 1,200.

The disaster struck on Friday, when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped the tracks and hit another passenger train passing in the opposite direction near the district of Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha.