Hyderabad, August 24 The authorities in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district have opened helplines to provide information to the kins of the passengers travelling in the train that met with an accident, killing six early Monday. Also, two other coaches of the train, S1 and S2 were derailed.

Under the impact of the collision, a huge granite block flew off the truck and hit the air-conditioned coach H1 making a gaping hole in it. Four passengers, including the MLA from Devdurg constituency of Raichur district, A.V. Venkatesha Nayak. died on the spot.

“The Bangalore-Nanded train collided with a lorry, it resulted in derailment of 4 coaches”.

The lorry broke the closed gate at a manned level crossing between Rengapalli and Penukonda station in Anantapur district and rammed into the Banglore-Nanded Express (Train now: 16594) due to negligence of the lorry driver.

Venkatesh Naik, the Congress legislator from Devadurg in Karnataka, and two other train riders were killed.

India’s Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu called it an “unfortunate accident”, adding that immediate relief has been sent to the affected people.

Preliminary reports confirmed that Karnataka MLA Venkatesh Nayak was among the five people killed.

The driver of the trolley fled from the site. “My deepest condolences to the families of the victims”, he said in a tweet.

“The accident occurred at around 2:30 a.m. when the granite-laden truck gate-crashed into the passing Bengaluru-Nanded express (#16594) at a level-crossing between Rangepalli and Penukonda stations in Anantapur district”, a South Western Railway (SWR) official told IANS in Bengaluru.