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Railway Collision in Eastern India Kills 15

Onlookers watch as rescuers work after a cargo train rammed into Kanchanjunga Express, a passenger train, near New Jalpaiguri station, West Bengal state, India, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Diptendu Dutta)
Onlookers watch as rescuers work after a cargo train rammed into Kanchanjunga Express, a passenger train, near New Jalpaiguri station, West Bengal state, India, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Diptendu Dutta)
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Railway Collision in Eastern India Kills 15

Onlookers watch as rescuers work after a cargo train rammed into Kanchanjunga Express, a passenger train, near New Jalpaiguri station, West Bengal state, India, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Diptendu Dutta)
Onlookers watch as rescuers work after a cargo train rammed into Kanchanjunga Express, a passenger train, near New Jalpaiguri station, West Bengal state, India, Monday, June 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Diptendu Dutta)

A freight train smashed into the rear of a stationary passenger train in India's West Bengal state on Monday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities blamed on a disregarded signal.

Media showed images of the pile-up, with containers from the goods train strewn nearby, and one carriage left nearly vertical after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signaling error caused one of India's worst rail crashes.

At least 15 bodies have been pulled from the mangled carriages, Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in the eastern state's district of Darjeeling, the site of the accident, told Reuters.
Nearly 30 people were injured and rescue teams from the police and national disaster response force were working with doctors and residents of the area to clear debris from the derailed carriages, Roy added.

The goods train hit the Kanchanjunga Express travelling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, driving three carriages of the passenger train off the rails.
It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board at the time.

Rescuers used iron rods and ropes to work free one carriage of the passenger train that had been swept upwards to lodge on the roof of the freight train by the impact of the collision.

The dead included the driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train, Jaya Varma Sinha, the head of the railway board that runs the countrywide network, told reporters.

The accident happened after the driver of the freight train disregarded a signal and hit the rear end of the express train, Sinha added.

Rescue work has been completed, Sinha said, while authorities were working to restore traffic, although the damage had been less extensive than initially feared.

"The guard's compartment in the passenger train was badly damaged," he added. "There were two parcel vans attached ahead of it which reduced the extent of damage to passengers."

Nearby residents heard a loud crash and saw the pile-up upon going to investigate, several told the ANI news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences on the loss of life in the accident and said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was on his way to the site.

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Vote-Ready UK Waits to Scoop Up Brexit Boost

Britain's last general election was all about leaving the EU but this time around Brexit is hardly getting a mention. Oli SCARFF / AFP
Britain's last general election was all about leaving the EU but this time around Brexit is hardly getting a mention. Oli SCARFF / AFP
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Vote-Ready UK Waits to Scoop Up Brexit Boost

Britain's last general election was all about leaving the EU but this time around Brexit is hardly getting a mention. Oli SCARFF / AFP
Britain's last general election was all about leaving the EU but this time around Brexit is hardly getting a mention. Oli SCARFF / AFP

Eight years after Britain voted for Brexit, businesses still lament economic fallout caused by the country's departure from the European Union, with little prospect of change after this week's election.
"After Brexit, I had to close my second shop to cut my loss," ice-cream parlor owner Diego Alfonso told AFP during an election campaign where both main parties have largely avoided talking about the EU divorce.
Alfonso, 37, set up "Bertotti" with his wife Suzana in 2012, four years before Britain voted in favor of exiting the bloc.
Keir Starmer, whose Labor party is tipped to win the vote on Thursday, has ruled out returning Britain to the European single market, customs union, or bringing back free movement of EU nationals.
Alfonso noted that "you could get things from the European Union very easily" before Brexit.
"Now, everything has so much bureaucracy. You need to fill out so many forms," he added from his remaining store in Hammersmith, a west London suburb.
This has increased the cost of doing business, hitting companies at a time when inflation began to take off as economies emerged from Covid lockdowns and in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which in particular forced up food and energy prices.
One scoop of Bertotti gelato, whose flavors range from lavender to honeycomb and dragon fruit, costs £3.90 ($4.90), up more than 40 percent since before the Brexit vote.
The price surge has hit demand, in a country where the weather is not associated with eating ice cream all year round.
'Is this worth it?'
"There's been a lot of times that we thought we weren't going to make it," said Alfonso, who turned the closed store into a workshop producing the ice cream thanks to ingredients and machinery from Europe.
"Some suppliers from the EU will sometimes not supply you, because it's a bit more work for them as well," he said, adding that the price of imported waffle cones has also soared in recent years.
Added to the picture, Britain's new post-Brexit border controls have caused delivery delays, extra costs and labor shortages.
The UK in a Changing Europe think-tank has said the annual cost of new UK customs declarations could total about £15 billion.
Other consequences of Brexit "red tape" include amended driving regulations and the loss of tens of thousands of young European seasonal workers who were allowed into Britain without work permits.
As a result, Bertotti's workforce has shrunk.
"It hasn't been easy, and there were times when we were like, is this worth it?," said Alfonso.
"We found new ways to make more money. We started supplying restaurants... going to festivals, getting our name out there.
"We're just breaking even but it's nothing compared to what it used to be. I don't want to quit because this is my passion, this is my business... my family," the owner added.
Cost to UK output
Bertotti is far from an isolated case. Rivet & Hide, a supplier of high-end men's clothing, says its turnover with the European Union has fallen by 50 percent since Brexit came into force.
Owner Danny Hodgson has raised prices to cover import taxes, in particular for leather items, as well as for export charges.
If the business community was largely opposed to Brexit, sectors which did support it such as fishing admit that leaving the EU has failed to deliver the economic benefits that were promised.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank and other economists estimate that the long-term cost of Brexit could be about four percent of UK gross domestic product.