Indian rescuers on Monday called off a search of the mangled carriages of a derailed train after pulling more bodies from the wreckage, taking to at least 146 the number of passengers killed in the disaster. Sunday's derailment in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh was India's deadliest train tragedy since 2010 and has renewed concern about poor safety on the state-run network, a lifeline for millions that has suffered from chronic underinvestment. Rescue teams worked through the night with cranes and cutters to disentangle the train before police halted the search of the 14 carriages that derailed in the early hours, while most passengers slept. "The rescue operations are over. We don't expect to find any more bodies," said Zaki Ahmed, the police inspector general in the city of Kanpur, about 65 km (40 miles) from Pukhrayan, the crash site.

Rescue workers operate at the site of a derailed train near Pukhrayan in Kanpur district on November 20, 2016. Sanjay Kanojia | AFP | Getty Images

The crash came during India's busy wedding season and media said blood-stained bags of saris and wedding cards carried by at least one wedding party on board were scattered beside the wreckage. The derailment injured more than 200 people, scores of them seriously, officials said, as relatives thronged hospitals in a search for survivors. A railways spokesman said the train carried 1,000 people traveling on reservations, but 700 more were estimated to have squeezed into the unreserved carriages. Ageing badly The largely colonial-era railway system, the world's fourth largest, carries about 23 million people daily, but is saturated and aging badly. Average speeds top just 50 kph (30 mph) and train accidents are common. The crash is a stark reminder of the obstacles facing Prime Minister Narendra Modi in delivering on his promise to turn the railways into a more efficient, safer network befitting India's economic power. Modi this year pledged record levels of investment and has announced a new high-speed line funded by Japan, but the main network has made little progress on upgrading tracks or signaling equipment. He has also shied away from raising highly subsidized fares that leave the railways with next to nothing for investment - by some analyst estimates, they need 20 trillion rupees ($293.34 billion) of investment by 2020.

A 40-year-old man holds his daughter in a district hospital after the derailment of an Indore-Patna Express train on Sunday morning. Ritesh Shukla | NurPhoto | Getty Images