A train in India crashed into a group of migrant workers walking along the railroad tracks on to their way back to their home state on Friday, killing at least 14, officials and local media said.
The Railways Ministry tweeted that after seeing some people on the track, the driver of the cargo train tried to stop but couldn't do so in time.
Police said another two workers were injured in the accident in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Police in the remote region could not immediately be reached for comment.
The news agency said the workers were walking to their home state of central Madhya Pradesh after they lost their jobs when the country went into a strict lockdown on March 25 to control the coronavirus pandemic. Most public transportation was cancelled.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was anguished by the loss of lives in the rail accident and he promised assistance to hundreds of thousands of workers stranded across the country.
Early this week as it eased the lockdown, the government started running trains to carry stranded workers to their home states. But there haven't been enough to ferry all of the workers and a large number of them have been walking across states to their villages.