The impact of the collision was so severe that some passengers of the Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal express, who were fast asleep, died instantly and their bodies thrown onto the roofs of other compartments.
At one point, a rescuer cutting through the metal sheet heard faint cries of a child, but as he tried to reach the source of the sound, the cries abruptly stopped indicating the inevitable.
Of the three rear bogies, which were hit from behind, one mounted a foot bridge and the other two hang perilously. A railway crane later in the afternoon brought down the engine from the bridge.
The engine of the Uttarbanga express was turned into a heap of twisted steel and both the driver and assistant driver were killed instantly.
Eyewitnesses say that the guard of the Vananchal express, who was alerted by some hawkers who saw the train rushing in from behind, failed to jump off due to high speed of the Uttarbanga express which was much more than the stipulated speed limit.
Security personnel guarding the bogies had a trying time to remove the curious onlookers which posed problems for the rescuers.
The National Disaster Relief Force personnel arrived on the scene in the morning a little after the accident with sniffer dogs and immediately got into locating bodies which lay trapped in the innards of the compartments.
Army personnel also reached the spot quickly and swung into rescue operation.
All the injured were rescued and sent to Suri hospital.