A fire swept through a train car packed with sleeping passengers in southern India on Monday, killing at least 47 people and sending panicked survivors rushing for the only clear exit once the train stopped, officials said. A railway station worker noticed the burning coach as the overnight train from New Delhi to the southeastern city of Chennai passed through the town of Nellore at about 4 a.m. said local official B. Sridhar. Nellor is nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state. Once the alarm was raised, the train was stopped and the passenger car detached from the rest of the train to prevent the blaze from spreading. Passengers were evacuated once the train was halted. "Since the fire had engulfed one door of the coach, people had to rush to the other end of the coach to exit," Sridhar told The Associated Press by telephone, speaking from the accident site. The blaze killed 47 people, said Anil Kumar, regional railway manager At least 28 other passengers were hospitalized with burns, Sridhar said, adding that at least two of the injured were in critical condition.
