Investigators searched for clues on Saturday to the cause of a train derailment and an ensuing blaze that killed 25 people and injured nearly 100 more in northern Myanmar.
Two petrol tankers loaded onto the train overturned in Friday’s accident and local villagers collecting the fuel were burned to death as flames tore across the crash site.
While the death toll did not rise overnight, police said 93 injured people were undergoing treatment, most of them in local hospitals in the town of Kantbalu in the Sagaing Region bordering India.
“I don’t think the death toll will rise. The people who died perished on the spot when they were burnt,” a police officer in Kantbalu told reporters by telephone, requesting anonymity.
The officer added that the cause of the accident was still unknown.
Photographs posted on a government website on Friday showed the charred remains of victims and debris scattered around the site, while the scorched and mangled train lay wrecked with its wheels off the track.
