Turkey train derails leaving 24 dead and hundreds injured

Istanbul - At least 24 people were killed and more than 70 injured Sunday when a passenger train derailed in northwestern Turkey, Turkish authorities said.

The train was en route to Istanbul from the town of Kapikule on the Bulgarian border, according to the reports.

Five of the train's six cars derailed, with about 360 passengers on board, after "the ground between the culvert and the rail collapsed" due to heavy rains, the Ministry of Transport said.

Emergency services rescue victims from overturned train cars near a village in Tekirdag province. AP

Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag put the number of fatalities at 24 and the number of people injured at 73, according to Turkey's official Anadolu news agency.

The state-run Anadolu news agency quoted Akdag as saying 'search operations this morning had now been completed at the wreck of the train.'

Before then, an unnamed survivor told the private DHA news agency she had been in one of the cars that went off the tracks.

"There were deaths immediately, people whose legs were crushed. It was a horrible accident," she said.

A photograph of the site showed collapsed ground under the rails. Video footage captured overturned cars and several people being carried away on stretchers.

Tekirdag governor Mehmet Ceyhan said the area where the derailment happened was muddy and difficult to reach. Military and ambulance helicopters arrived at the accident scene.

Russian news sources meanwhile said that Russian tourists were among those injured in the derailment.