At least 200 people are feared dead after a passenger train rolled back into an oncoming cargo train in central Tanzania.
Police said the accident took place in Igandu village near Mpwapwa after the passenger train's brakes failed.
The train was traveling from Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, to Mwanza and Kigoma in western Tanzania.
"At least 200 people are dead but we fear there could be more," Mr John Mtimbwa, the regional medical officer in the Tanzanian administrative capital, Dodoma.
"I counted 100 bodies lying on the ground next to the wreckage," said Mr Daniel Musangya, a journalist working for African Rural Press in Action. "Other bodies are trapped beneath the overturned cabins. The badly injured so far are about 800," he added.
A police official said he saw bodies being ferried away from the accident in a truck.
Earlier, rail officials in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, said at least 48 bodies had been recovered.
Mr Isaac Mwakajila, assistant director-general of Tanzanian Railway Corporation, said the train was climbing a steep hill when it experienced mechanical problems and rolled backwards on the tracks towards an approaching cargo train.
"The train went off the railway tracks backwards and smashed into another train behind it going in the same direction. It had 22 cabins and 21 of them fell off the rail tracks," he said, adding that the train was carrying about 1,000 passengers.
"We are not sure of the exact number of those dead. It is very difficult to get figures from the scene."
AP