Assam tragedy: Rajdhani Express derails after hitting elephants, killing 7

MALIGAON (Assam): In the wee hours of Saturday, an unfortunate incident took place in the Jamunamukh-Kampur section under Lumding Division of N.F. railway wherein Train no. 20507 DN Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express hit a herd of elephants, resulting in derailment of the locomotive and five coaches of the train. Seven elephants have been reported dead with no casualties or injuries to any passengers.

After receiving the information of the crash, senior railway officers, including the General Manager of North-Frontier Railway and Divisional Railway Manager of Lumding and accident relief trains arrived at the site to carry out restoration work.

#WATCH | Assam | Seven elephants were killed after the Train no. 20507 DN Sairang – New Delhi Rajdhani Express dashed into elephants in the Jamunamukh – Kampur section under Lumding Division of N.F. Railway: Forest Official of Nagaon Division

(Visuals from the spot) https://t.co/4Oqx0F5bqo pic.twitter.com/rQt0jABhFl

— ANI (@ANI) December 20, 2025

“The passengers of the affected coaches have been temporarily accommodated in the vacant berths available in other coaches. The derailment-affected train, after detaching the affected coaches, has left the site for Guwahati at 06:11 hrs. Once the train reaches Guwahati, additional coaches will be added to accommodate the passengers of the affected coaches, and the train will resume its journey”, Kapinjal Kishore Sharma, Chief Public Relations Officer of the Northeast Frontier Railway, said.

He further stated that the incident site is approximately 126 km from Guwahati and is not a designated elephant corridor, adding that the loco pilot, on observing the herd of elephants, applied emergency brakes. However, the train dashed into the elephants.

While restoration work is complete, railway authorities said trains scheduled to pass through that section are being diverted to the UP line.

#WATCH | Hojai, Assam | Restoration work underway at the site where seven elephants were killed after the Train no. 20507 DN Sairang – New Delhi Rajdhani Express dashed into elephants in the Jamunamukh – Kampur section under Lumding Division of N.F. Railway. No casualties or… pic.twitter.com/2td0VLtm3h

— ANI (@ANI) December 20, 2025

Meanwhile, technological improvements in Indian Railways (IR) are a continuous process. There are several Artificial Intelligence-based predictive maintenance applications, the Ministry of Railways said in a press release.P

ilot initiatives involving AI-driven predictive maintenance of the Signalling system are being undertaken over Indian Railways at some of the stations to evaluate its efficacy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled Intrusion Detection System (IDS) using Distributed Acoustic System (DAS) for detecting presence of elephants on Railway tracks is implemented in 141 RKms section on NF Railway and further tenders have been awarded for 981 RKms section of Indian Railways.

The system is designed to generate alerts for loco pilots, station masters and Control Room about the movement of elephants in proximity of railway tracks, for taking timely preventive action. (ANI)