As many as 129 people were killed and more than 200 injured when 14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express train derailed in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh early Sunday — one of India’s worst train accidents in six years.

The derailment happened at 3.10am near Pukhrayan, about 100km from Kanpur. Most of the 500 passengers on board were sleeping and some of the shocked survivors recalled how they got jolted out of their slumber by a violent thud.

“The coach began to shake and people who were asleep began falling on one another. When the shuddering stopped … our bogie was in a crop field, 25m from the tracks. It was cold and dark,” recalled Raj Kumar Gupta, who was in the S4 coach which was among the four coaches that were gravely damaged.

The S1 and S2 telescoped into each other while the S3 coach also suffered severe damage. Four AC coaches were derailed too.