Four persons have died and 40 others have received injuries in the train mishap that took place in Bihar’s Buxar district last night, a top railway official said on Thursday.

General Manager of East Central Railway Tarun Prakash was at Raghunathpur, to supervise the restoration work at the site where several bogies of the North East Express coming from Anand Vihar Terminus in Delhi had derailed.

"The number of casualties is four. The number of injured passengers is 40. The cause of derailment will be known only after a proper investigation. At present our priority is to clear the tracks. Until normal traffic is restored, trains running on the route will be diverted", Prakash told PTI-video.

Later, on being asked by journalists whether any sabotage was suspected, Prakash replied "We can speak on the possible cause only after the probe is complete".

All passengers of the train bound for Kamakhya near Guwahati in Assam, who were in a position to undertake the onward journey, boarded a relief train in the early hours of Thursday.

Cranes and equipment used in cutting through metal have been pressed into service for clearing the tracks, where lay a number of derailed coaches, some of these overturned.

The injured people were, meanwhile, undergoing treatment at hospitals mostly in Buxar town and Ara, where the neighbouring Bhojpur district is headquartered.

Eight critically injured passengers have been brought to AIIMS, Patna.

Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, who is the MP from Buxar, shared a video clip of himself in conversation with the Director of AIIMS, Patna.

Choubey was told that the injured persons admitted to the super speciality hospital included three women.

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