Nashik : At least 3 persons were killed and 31 others injured in a collision between a local train and Vidarbha Express near Khardi station near here on Mumbai-Kasara route tonight.

The mishap took place after 11 bogeys of an EMU train from Kasara going to Kalyan derailed possibly due to landslide, Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal said in New Delhi.

The derailed EMU coaches blocked the adjacent track on which the Vidarbha Express, going from Mumbai to Gondia, came from the opposite direction and collided with EMU bogeys at around 2130 hours, he said.

The driver of the Vidarbha Express noticed the obstructions on the track and applied emergency brake and as a result two of its coaches S9 and S10 jumped off the line, causing the collision with the derailed coaches, he said.

A medical team has reached the accident site.

Mittal said the Commissioner of Safety (Railways) would conduct an inquiry into the incident.

Railway Minister Mukul Roy announced an exgratia of Rs five lakh for next of the kin of the dead, Rs 1 lakh for seriously injured and Rs 25,000 for those who suffered simple injuries.

A statement from Central Railway said the mishap took place between Kasara and Umbermali on Kalyan Igatpuri section of Mumbai division.

Helpline Number 022-22694040 (Mumbai), 10720 (Nagpur) has been provided for those seeking the information about the mishap, the statement added.

Traffic on Kalyan-Kasara section of the Central Railway in Thane district will be fully restored by early Saturday morning, a top official said.  Officials had put the death toll at three earlier, which was later revised downward to one.

“We will open one of the two lines by Friday mid-night and the second one by Saturday morning,” Central Railway General Manager Subodh Jain told PTI at the accident site.  In the meanwhile, some of the long-distance trains will run via Manmad.

According to Jain, the mishap occurred after the loco pilot of Vidarbha Express applied emergency brakes on spotting the derailed local train on the the tracks.

The time lag between the derailed local train coming to a halt and the collision was only 1.17 seconds, and the loco pilot did the best possible thing by applying the brakes, he said, adding that this resulted in one of the bogeys of Vidarbha Express piling up on top of another.

Asked if anti-collision device could have averted the incident, Jain said, “It is very unlikely for an automatic system to be effective even in the slim time lag.

Manual intervention was the best possible action in such situation.” A CR statement said that Mumbai-Bhusawal Passenger (51153) and its return service have been cancelled, while Gorakhpur LTT Superfast train (12541) will be terminated at Nashik Road and Secunderabad-Mumbai Devgiri Express (17058) will be terminated at Manmad today.