India Train Disaster: President Buhari Condoles With PM Modi

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has expressed deep sorrow and regret over the Sunday train disaster in India that killed more than 100 passengers near Pukhrayan.

A statement by the spokesman for the President, Mr Garba Shehu, said Buhari, who received the news of the train derailment and heavy loss of lives, expressed great sorrow and profound shock, as he commiserates with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi and the families of the victims.

“The loss of human life on whatever scale, and anywhere, is bad enough. The world becomes united in sorrow during such moments because our common humanity makes us a family,” President Buhari stated.

He said that the government and the people of Nigeria felt and shared the pains and the anguish of the families of the victims and all Indians.

The Nigerian leader prayed that God would comfort the grieving Asian nation.

At least 119 people were killed and more than 150 injured when an Indian express train derailed in northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, with the toll set to rise amid a scramble to locate survivors.

Police officials said people were still missing as authorities tried to determine what caused 14 carriages of the train traveling between the northeastern city of Patna and the central city of Indore to suddenly roll off the tracks in Pukhrayan, 65 km south of Kanpur city.

Authorities said they were checking the condition of the tracks but would need to look further before concluding the cause of the derailment, India’s deadliest rail tragedy since more than 140 died in a 2010 collision in West Bengal.

Desperate survivors searched for family members and some tried to enter the damaged carriages to rescue relatives and collect belongings, said senior railway official Pratap Rai.

India’s creaking railway system is the world’s fourth largest. It runs 11,000 trains a day, including 7,000 passenger trains carrying more than 20 million people. But it has a poor safety record, with thousands of people dying in accidents every year, including in train derailments and collisions.