At least 50 people were killed in eastern India after two passenger trains derailed in an accident that also involved a head-on collision with a goods train, according to officials, while hundreds remained trapped in mangled train carriages.

    Sudhanshu Sarangi, the director general of the state’s fire services, said 400 people were injured in Friday’s accident in Odisha state’s Balasore district.

    In an interview to broadcaster NDTV he said that they hope to “complete the rescue operation in the next two to three hours”.

Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde, the top administrator in Balasore, said at least 50 people were dead.

    Pradeep Jena, Odisha’s top civil servant, told reporters, “There have been casualties, but since all are busy in rescue, we have not yet counted the number, so I can’t officially confirm [the] exact number.”

    “But yes, such a violent and tragic accident involving three trains — two passenger trains and one goods train — we cannot rule out fatalities. We are only praying to god that it should be minimum and throughout the night we will work,” Jena added.

    The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata in the east to Chennai in southern India, fell onto the opposite track, local reports said.

    Hundreds of rescue personnel were looking for 200 passengers who are feared to be trapped, and were cutting through the debris to reach them, NDTV reported. Footage showed dozens of people on top of the overturned carriages, as rescuers used cutters and performed the delicate task of extricating survivors from the coaches.

    “I had hurt my eye before, so I was asleep. When the carriage overturned, my sleep broke and 10-15 people fell on top of me,” one survivor told reporters, as he sat on the ground in the dark, steps away from the crash site. “I hurt my hand and neck. Look around at all this. When I was taken out, I saw someone’s head smashed, someone without a leg. I am staying here for now.”

    The cause of the accident was being investigated, said Amitabh Sharma, a spokesperson for the Indian Railways. The details of the accident were not immediately clear, nor was the sequence of events.

    “Nearly 50 ambulances have reported, but the injured appear far too many. Large no of buses being mobilised to shift injured to hospital,”  Jena wrote earlier on Twitter.

    Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who was rushing to the site of the crash, tweeted: “Will take all hands required for the rescue ops.”