Eight passengers fell off a suburban train near Mumbra in Maharashtra’s Thane district, the railways said on Monday.

Several passengers were feared dead, NDTV reported.

The persons onboard a local train fell on the railway tracks, Central Railway’s Chief Public Relations Officer Swapnil Nila told reporters. The incident took place on fast train tracks between Mumbra and Diwa.

The persons were taken to hospital in Thane’s Kalwa area, the railways said.

“It is not a collision,” the railway official said. “In this incident, the passengers travelling on footboards in trains in opposite directions got entangled. This is one of the suspected reasons for the incident, as informed by a passenger… The distance between two trains is 1.5-2 meters, but on curves, a slight tilt happens, and this could be an additional reason for the incident.”

One of the trains was heading to Thane’s Kasara from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The other train was going towards Mumbai, the official said.

It was unclear if passengers who had fallen on the tracks were from both trains.

The railways were informed about the incident by a guard on a train headed to Kasara at 9.30 am and ambulances reached the spot at 9.50 am, Nila said.

“We have seen that sometimes passengers travel standing on the footboard even when there is space in the train,” Nila said.

Nila added: “All new local train rakes are air conditioned and have automatic door closure facility. We are trying to ensure that no such incident happens again.”

The railway board has decided that all rakes already in service will be retrofitted with the door closure facility, the railway official told reporters.

About 37.62 lakh passengers travelled on Mumbai suburban trains operated by the Central Railway in 2023-’24, while 27.24 passengers travelled on trains operated by the Western Railway, according to The Times of India.

Last year, Mumbai’s suburban train network recorded 2,468 deaths, or more than six fatalities every day, the newspaper reported.

This is a developing story. It will be updated as new details are available.