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HYDERABAD, Sunday (AFP) At least 20 passengers were killed and 90 injured after an overnight express train derailed in southern India early Saturday, a senior railway official said.

The official, who was at the site, said at least 20 people were killed when the express train from the southern city of Hyderabad derailed in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh state about 1.15 am (1945 GMT Friday).

Ten bodies were recovered from one carriage alone, he said, adding that 90 people had been injured, some of them seriously.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar earlier said at least 18 people had died.

"So far we have 18 dead. I asked my officials at the site about the cause of the mishap, they said they are still ascertaining it," Kumar told reporters in New Delhi.

"Right now, the first priority is treating the injured and other victims. I am deeply saddened by this unfortunate accident."

Officials said the death toll could rise since two of the affected coaches were still to be cut open.

Twelve of the bodies recovered have yet to be identified by railway officials.

Nine carriages of the train rolled over and two came off the track completely when the train, bound for Bangalore, was moving at around 80 to 100 kilometres (50 to 60 miles) per hour, officials said.

The 7685 Bangalore express had left Kachiguda station in Hyderabad at 7 pm (1330 GMT) on Friday and most of the passengers had settled down for the night and were asleep when the accident happened.

Fourteen coaches that had not derailed were taken to the nearby Guntoor station with the injured on board, a railway official in Delhi said.

A special train left from Bangalore to take relatives of the victims to the accident site, about 300 kilometres (186 miles) away.

"The train took a sharp turn in the night and we fell down with great force, not knowing what had happened," passenger Pervez Banu said.

Another passenger, Surendranath Modi, a college principal was on his way to Bangalore to visit his daughter.

"It was around one in the night when I tumbled from my middle berth. The next thing I felt was the blood on my face," he said.

The leader of India's main opposition Congress Party Sonia Gandhi expressed "deep shock" at the incident and conveyed her condolences to the relatives of the victims.

Railway officials at the spot said sabotage could not be ruled out as a cause of the derailment.

"A part of one of the tracks was found to be cut at the spot of the accident," a railway official, who did not want to be identified, said.

Railway officials said that restoration work was on at full swing Saturday evening to restore the flow of traffic.

The accident has highlighted India's poor record in railway safety.

In September, 120 people were killed when a high-speed luxury passenger train veered off the tracks in eastern Bihar state as it was travelling over a bridge around 130 kilometres (80 miles) per hour. Part of the train fell into a river.

In the past five years around 2,400 people have died in Indian train accidents.

Collisions, mainly caused by signalling faults, are the major cause of deaths.

With a staff of 1.6 million people, Indian Railways claims to be the world's biggest employer. It is saddled with a bloated bureaucracy and lacks the resources to increase capacity on busy routes.

According to a safety committee report, 515 railway bridges need to be replaced immediately, 12,260 kilometres (7,601 miles) of track need to be repaired, while signalling equipment at 1,060 stations is defunct.

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