Sandeep Kumar remembers hearing the cries of a boy and his coach getting filled with dust as the Chandigarh-Dibrugarh Express derailed here on Thursday.

"I remember the loud cries of a boy sitting on the berth across from me. For a moment, the coach was filled with dust and it was all dark. I don't remember what happened in the next few seconds. I only remember the cries and that some passengers pulled my hand and helped me get out of the window," said Sandeep Kumar, who was travelling in a sleeper coach.

At least eight coaches of the train derailed in the Motiganj area, about 150 km from Lucknow, near Gonda on Thursday, leaving four passengers dead and about 20 injured.

The passenger train heading to Dibrugarh from Chandigarh crossed the Gonda station at 01:58 pm. The next stoppage was Basti, but it derailed shortly after it crossed the Motiganj railway station.

"I was sitting near the window when I heard a loud noise," recalled another passenger Manish Tiwari, 35, who was travelling in the B2 coach of the train. Tiwari said he felt a jerk that hurled him to the roof of the coach.

"I climbed to the upper berth to catch a nap after the train left Gonda. I just remember a strong jerk before being thrown on the other side's upper berth. I hoped it was a dream, but it wasn't," said another passenger Dileep Singh, who was travelling to Chhapra in Bihar.

Rajkumari (55), while talking to PTI on the spot, said she was travelling from Chandigarh to Siwan (Bihar) with her son in a sleeper coach when the train derailed.

"We were sitting when suddenly it felt like an earthquake. When the train started shaking, I realised something was wrong," she said.

Another passenger of the train Sunita Sethiya (42), who was travelling from Chandigarh to Gorakhpur, said she had gone to the washroom at the time of the incident.

"As soon as I came out, I felt a strong jolt. Luckily, both the gates were closed. I got hit with the gate. Had the gate been open, I would have fallen straight down. The people of the village and the nearby areas helped us a lot," she said.

Shaukat Ansari, admitted in the Community Health Centre (CHC), Mankapur, said that he was going to Gorakhpur when the accident happened.

He sustained injuries on his face while his father suffered injuries on his back, he said, adding he could not understand what happened to the train.

The loud noise of the coaches leaving the track and toppling over to the left was followed by loud cries of the passengers, especially children.

The passengers started coming out of the emergency windows and doors of the tilted sleeper coaches, and some went back to pull out their belongings. In the AC coaches, passengers helped each other break the window panes and pull out those injured or stuck.

Passengers had to wade through knee-deep water in the fields on either side of the track to reach the nearby approach road. Others, shocked by the accident or injured, sat on the track itself, waiting to be rescued.

When police teams reached the spot, officials made announcements asking people to stay away from the damaged coaches. The rescuers cordoned off the area and were seen entering the damaged coaches to ensure that no passenger was left behind.

Dr Satya Narayan, a doctor at the CHC, said about 25 people were brought to his hospital.

"One of them had already died. The injured have been treated. Three people were seriously injured, who have been referred to the Gonda District Hospital," he said.

Standing at some distance, another team directed the injured passengers towards ambulances lined up at an approach road about 300 metres away. Passengers with serious injuries were carried to the ambulances in stretchers.

The district administration also arranged for buses to take the passengers to their respective places.

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