At least 47 people have been killed and 25 others injured by a fire on an express train in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Monday.

The injured are being treated in hospital. Local TV channels report that most of the passengers were asleep when the fire broke out. Senior railway and state administration officials have rushed to the spot and ordered an investigation. Indian Railways Minister Mukul Roy announced compensation of about 2,000 U.S. dollars each to the families of those killed in the fire.

Firefighters try to extinguish the fire of a burning coach of a passenger train at Nellor nearly 500 kilometers from Hyderabad, India, July 30, 2012. At least 47 people have been charred to death and 25 others sustained burn injuries in a major fire that broke out in one of the coaches of an express train in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Monday, a senior police official said. [Xinhua]?