Two passenger trains derailed Friday in India, killing more than 200 people and trapping hundreds of others inside more than a dozen damaged rail cars, officials said.

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The accident that happened about 137 miles southwest of Kolkata created a chaotic scene of twisted wreckage and desperate rescuers as teams tried to free passengers and recover bodies. The cause was under investigation.

About 900 people were injured in the accident, Odisha state’s top bureaucrat, P.K. Jena, said in a tweet.

Ten to 12 coaches of one train derailed, and debris from some of the mangled coaches fell onto a nearby track, said Amitabh Sharma, a railroad ministry spokesperson.

The debris was hit by another passenger train coming from the opposite direction, and up to three coaches of the second train also derailed, Sharma said.

The Press Trust reported that a third train carrying freight was also involved, but there was no immediate confirmation from railroad authorities. The Press Trust report said some of the derailed passenger coaches hit cars from the freight train.

The death toll rose steadily throughout the night. As dawn approached, the top bureaucrat in the eastern state of Odisha announced that at least 207 were dead.

In the aftermath, television images showed rescuers climbing atop the wreckage to break open doors and windows and using cutting torches to free survivors.

Officials said 1,200 rescuers worked with 115 ambulances, 50 buses and 45 mobile health units through the night at the accident site.

Villagers said they rushed to the site to evacuate people after hearing a loud sound created by the train coaches going off the tracks.

“The local people really went out on a limb to help us. They not only helped in pulling out people, but retrieved our luggage and got us water,” PTI cited Rupam Banerjee, a survivor, as saying.

Passenger Vandana Kaleda told the New Delhi Television news channel that she “found people falling on each other” as her coach shook violently and veered off the tracks. She said she was lucky to survive.

Another survivor who did not give his name said he was sleeping when the impact woke him up. He said he saw other passengers with broken limbs and disfigured faces.

The Press Trust said the derailed Coromandel Express was traveling from Howrah in West Bengal state to Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu state.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his thoughts were with the bereaved families.

"May the injured recover soon,” tweeted Modi, who said he had spoken to the railway minister and that “all possible assistance” was being offered.

Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world.

In August 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in the worst train accident in India’s history.

In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.

Most train accidents are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.

More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains across India every day, traveling on 40,000 miles of track.

NEW DELHI —

Her memory of the assassination attempt is hazy. What she does know is that her father asked the Taliban to do it.

A former Afghan policewoman, Khatera Hashmi was shot multiple times on her way home from work last October in the capital of Ghazni province, south of Kabul.

As she slumped over, one of the attackers grabbed her by the hair, pulled a knife and gouged out her eyes.

Two months pregnant at the time, Hashmi survived the gruesome attack, as did her unborn child. Hashmi's father had vehemently opposed her decision to join the police force, and although she didn't elaborate on her father's involvement, she told The Associated Press that the police had arrested and imprisoned him.

After recovering from her wounds, she and her husband fled to India, leaving two children in the care of her mother-in-law. Her third child, a daughter, was born a few months after their arrival in India.

However, like thousands of other Afghan refugees in India, any plans they had of returning were dashed this month by the Taliban's shockingly swift takeover of the country.

What many thought would be a short, temporary escape has turned into a long-lasting exile.

Another Afghan refugee is Mohammad Akbar Farhad, a 50-year-old artist. He too dreams of home while living in suspended animation abroad.

On a hot August afternoon at his apartment in New Delhi, his brush made brief, generous strokes on a huge oil painting depicting the ruins of the Bala Hissar, or High Fort, Kabul's ancient citadel that housed Afghan rulers for centuries.

"This is my only source of income," Farhad said, tracing the contours of the canvas with his fingers.

Back in Kabul, he faced repeated threats from Taliban sympathizers — always armed — who demanded he close his art studio. They said his work fell outside the bounds of Islamic law.

When the threats became more frequent, his entire family ran away to their village in the countryside. In their absence, their house was ransacked and his paintings torn to shreds.

"After that, I didn't even have the courage to touch my brush for months," he said.

Farhad fled with his family to India in 2018, expecting to return.

Earlier this year, the insurgents burned his art studio. All of his artwork was destroyed, leaving him crestfallen. And that was before the government in Kabul collapsed.

Concern for her loved ones back home fills Hashmi, the policewoman, with dread.

"I will never be able to go back to Afghanistan now, even if I wanted to," the 33-year-old said in her modest two-room apartment in New Delhi, where she lives with her husband and daughter Bahar, now seven months old.

Many Afghans fear the Taliban will erase the gains, especially for women, achieved in the decades since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. When the militant group ran the country in the late 1990s, they imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, forcing a sequestered life for many, particularly women and girls who were forbidden from education and most employment.

The Taliban now seek to present themselves as a more moderate force, offering amnesty to those who fought them and declaring the rights of women would be honored under Islamic law.

Hashmi is bitterly pessimistic.

"Women there won't be able to live in peace now. They won't even die in peace, even if they wish to," she said.

"Everything is gone," she said after a brief pause. Her husband, Mohammad Nabi, looked at her with tenderness but said nothing.

Nabi was a shop salesman back in Ghazni. The two fell deeply in love, and she made it clear before they got married that she planned to join the police.

"I saw what the Taliban did to women. I wanted to do something for them. I wanted women to get their rights," she said.

Nabi supported her decision, even though it would eventually make his wife a target, and the two began building a family together.

Hashmi's father threatened her, insisting she quit. She wouldn't budge.

After the attack that blinded her, the police said they arrested her father and sent him to a prison at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul. When the Taliban swept into the capital, Afghan forces at the former U.S. base surrendered. The prison had housed 5,000 inmates, including Taliban and Islamic State group fighters.

Imagining that her father might now be a free man fills Hashmi with horror.

"If I go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban might cut off my legs this time," she said.

But life in India remains difficult.

"Whenever I hold Bahar in my arms, I feel sad. My husband can't leave her alone. He can't even go to work. Sometimes we don't even have money to buy food," Hashmi said, winding her way back to the bedroom as Nabi holds her by the hand.

Although she says their love has grown while in exile, they also struggle. Food sometimes runs scarce because charity money from fellow refugees isn't enough. Phone calls home often cut out due to the poor cellular network. Being separated from her children is a nightmare.

And in particular, they fight to live a dignified life trapped within a complex bureaucratic process to register as refugees in India. The system strains under a yearslong backlog.

As of 2019, Afghans accounted for around a third of the nearly 40,000 refugees registered in India, according to the U.N. refugee agency. But that figure excludes those who, like Hashmi's family, are not registered with the U.N.

"My wife gave her eyes for her country. But nobody helped us," Nabi said. "Not even our own government."

For these two Afghan families, the Taliban blitz toward Kabul left them feeling isolated and further from home than ever.

"I haven't slept properly for weeks," said Farhad, the painter. "All I think of is my country."

His son Hassan is angry at his country's politicians — and the U.S.

"America has failed us," he said.

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Yeah. Mhm. In the grand scheme of things, you feel very helpless and you were evaluating and watching uh, everything by the minute and you, you know, you can call your parents, call your loved ones to see how they're doing, but there's only so much you can do right now in system, go to hospital, go this and that. But if, say if they get sick and if beds are not available, if oxygen is not available, what can you do right now? Yeah. Yeah. Woman, We learned a 32 year old, okay. Uh, in our apartment complex pass from corona. It happened two days gone. His mother is sick, then one of our first cousin, another part of the city. He got really sick, relatively young and he was on ventilator and then he passed away and then I was like, man, this is getting serious. Um, so we forced the dad who kept on insisting he doesn't have corona. Everything is good to go. He got tested and he was positive. and then, you know, uh, things escalated. And then the same day my mom heard from her uncle who's about, who's in his seventies and he, he was fully vaccinated by the way he passed away in corona. And now we're just hearing so many cases. Yes. The times of India has got a lot of information, you know, that a lot of different channels like that, luckily his temperature, oxygen, everything is good right now. So you can hope and trade that. It doesn't get bad. But if it gets bad, what's going to happen? Who you gonna call? Like someone, Like I said, my other friends, they're in India, there are sick and the parents in the hospital, it's just, so what we're gonna do then. So it, it seems like a very helplessness situation right now?

Biden administration to restrict travel from India

Updated: 2:36 PM EDT Apr 30, 2021

Video above: Indians in US feel helpless amid India COVID surgeThe Biden administration will restrict travel from India starting on Tuesday on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a White House official told CNN."The policy was implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in India," a White House official said.The administration will issue a 212(f) order restricting entry into the U.S. for foreign nationals who have been in India within the previous 14 days, a source familiar with the move said. Airlines have been told of the decision, the source said.The new policy will take effect at 12:01 am ET Tuesday.The policy won't apply to American citizens, lawful permanent residents or other people with exemptions. As with all international travelers, individuals who fit that criteria traveling from India must still test negative prior to leaving the country, quarantine if they have not been vaccinated and test negative again upon reentering the U.S. from India.The restrictions also do not apply to humanitarian workers.The White House informed congressional offices on Friday of the move.This is a developing story.

Video above: Indians in US feel helpless amid India COVID surge

The Biden administration will restrict travel from India starting on Tuesday on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a White House official told CNN.

"The policy was implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in India," a White House official said.

The administration will issue a 212(f) order restricting entry into the U.S. for foreign nationals who have been in India within the previous 14 days, a source familiar with the move said. Airlines have been told of the decision, the source said.

The new policy will take effect at 12:01 am ET Tuesday.

The policy won't apply to American citizens, lawful permanent residents or other people with exemptions. As with all international travelers, individuals who fit that criteria traveling from India must still test negative prior to leaving the country, quarantine if they have not been vaccinated and test negative again upon reentering the U.S. from India.

The restrictions also do not apply to humanitarian workers.

The White House informed congressional offices on Friday of the move.

This is a developing story.