Officials report that at least 288 people were slain and 850 were injured in a multiple train collision in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.

More than 200 ambulances were dispatched to the Balasore district, according to Odisha’s chief secretary, Pradeep Jena.

Friday night, a passenger train is believed to have derailed before colliding with another train on the adjacent track.

It is the worst train accident in India this century. The death toll is expected to escalate, according to officials.

According to Indian Railways, the affected trains were the Coromandel Express and the Howrah Superfast Express.

According to Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of the Odisha Fire Services, there were 288 fatalities.

Mr. Jena previously stated that more than one hundred additional physicians had been mobilized.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was distressed by the incident and his thoughts were with the bereaved families.

Rescue operations are underway at the accident site, and all possible aid is being provided to those afflicted, he tweeted.

Home Minister Amit Shah described the incident as “extremely distressing.”

A male survivor stated, “Ten to fifteen individuals fell on me when the accident occurred and everything went haywire.” I was at the base of the stack.

“Both my hand and the back of my neck were injured. When I emerged from the train car, I saw that someone had lost a hand, a limb, and their face was disfigured,” the survivor told India’s ANI news agency.

A state-wide day of mourning has been declared.

Several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express are believed to have derailed at approximately 19:00 local time (13:30 GMT), with some winding up on the opposite track.

The Howrah Superfast Express traveling from Yesvantpur to Howrah is then believed to have collided with the derailed carriages.

Officials from India reported that a stationary freight train was also involved in the incident. They provided no additional information.

Some surviving passengers were seen rushing into the wreckage to assist in the rescue of those who were confined.

Local transit companies also assisted in transporting injured passengers.

India has one of the largest train networks in the world and accidents are prevalent, despite successive governments investing hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the infrastructure, says BBC South Asia regional editor Anbarasan Ethirajan.

In 1981, during a cyclone in the state of Bihar, an overcrowded passenger train was blown off the tracks and into a river, murdering at least 800 individuals.