AT least seven people have been killed in eastern India after seven coaches of a New Delhi-bound train derailed, an official has said.
Another 10 people were injured in the accident that occurred early yesterday morning in Bihar state, according to District Magistrate Rajeev Roshan.
Members of India’s disaster management force and rescue workers have led an effort to pull out the people trapped in the train’s twisted metal and underneath its overturned coaches.
The cause of the accident is being investigated.
MEANWHILE, India’s government has said it is monitoring the detention of Indian students in the United States.
Some 129 Indians were detained on January 30 by US immigration authorities in connection with enrolment at a fake university, according to Indian reports.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the university was set up by authorities as part of a sting operation to catch people violating visa terms.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it has been in contact with US officials and has expressed concern for the detained students.
In a statement, the ministry said: “Our concern over the dignity and well-being of the detained students and the need for immediate consular access for Indian officials to the detainees was reiterated.”
A US Homeland Security Investigations statement read: “All participants in the scheme knew that the school had no instructors or actual classes.”
IN Australia, the government has announced that the last child refugees held on the Pacific atoll of Nauru will soon be sent to the US, ending the policy of banishing child asylum seekers.
The policy, which sees asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat sent to an immigration camp on Nauru, has received criticism since 2013.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, pictured, far-left, said the last four asylum seeker children on Nauru would soon be resettled in the US.
But law firm Maurice Blackburn said the action had “taken far too long”. More than 1000 others remain on the islands.
A FIRE at Iran’s space research centre has killed three scientists, according to the country’s semi-official ISNA news agency.
The report quotes telecommunications minister Mohammad Javad Azari
Jahromi, pictured, right, as saying that three researchers have died “because of a fire in one of the buildings of the Space Research Centre”.
Iran plans to launch a satellite into orbit despite US criticism that such launches benefit its ballistic missile programme.
In 2013, the country launched a monkey into space.
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