Timeline: Major rail accidents in India since 1985

The following are some of the most serious train accidents in India over the past 25 years:

February 23, 1985: Approximately 100 people die when a train catches fire near Kolkata.

July 8, 1988: A train derails in the southern state of Kerala, claiming 105 lives.

April 16, 1990: A train catches fire near Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar, leaving around 100 dead.

August 20, 1995: A total of 305 die and 344 are injured in a collision between two trains in Ferozabad, near the northern town of Agra.

September 14, 1997: At least 100 die and more than 200 are injured when five train carriages fall into a river in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

November 26, 1998: At least 209 die in a collision between two trains in Punjab.

August 2, 1999: 285 are killed and 312 injured in a collision between two trains in Gaisal in the eastern state of West Bengal.

June 23, 2001: At least 59 die and 241 are injured after a Mangalore-Chennai train falls into a river in the southern state of Kerala when a bridge breaks.

September 10, 2002: A total of 130 people die when the Rajdhani Express, linking Kolkata to New Delhi, plunges into a river in Rafiganj in the eastern state of Bihar.

June 24, 2003: Over 51 people die in the derailment of a train in Maharashtra.

February 3, 2005: Fifty five people are killed in the western state of Maharashtra when a train collides with a tractor pulling a trailer crammed with people returning from a wedding.

October 29, 2005: At least 113 people die when a passenger train derails and topples into swirling floodwaters in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

May 28, 2010: At least 146 die in a derailment blamed on Maoists extremists in West Bengal. A Mumbai-bound high-speed passenger express from Kolkata veers off the tracks into the path of an oncoming freight train.

July 19, 2010: At least 60 die when an express train heading for Kolkata ploughs into the back of another train standing in a station in the Birbhum district, around 200 kilometres north of Kolkata.