Indian train derails in Tamil Nadu Published duration 4 September 2015

image copyright EPA image caption India's railway network operates 12,000 passenger trains and carries some 23 million passengers daily

At least 38 people have been injured after a passenger train derailed in India's Tamil Nadu state, reports say.

Five carriages of the train, which travels between Chennai and Mangalore, went off the rails at Puvanur in Vriddhachalam early on Friday.

The injured passengers have been rushed to a local hospital.

Last month, 24 people died after two passenger trains derailed minutes apart on a flooded bridge in the state of Madhya Pradesh

India's state-run railway network operates 12,000 passenger trains and carries some 23 million passengers every day.

Correspondents say the network has a patchy safety record. Decades of neglect, low investment and subsidised fares have left the network in a shambles, they add.

In March a passenger train derailed in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 34 people.