Probe ordered after Orissa train crash kills 12

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - Authorities have ordered a probe into an express train derailment in Orissa that killed 12 people and injured about 150, a senior railway official said on Saturday.

"A statutory commission of inquiry has been set up," said the chief public relations officer of East Coast Railways, J.P. Mishra.

The accident occurred Friday evening, several hours after the train left Kolkata.

About 1,500 passengers were travelling to Chennai when more than a dozen coaches of the Coromandel Express train jumped the tracks near the remote Jajpur Road station.

Railway officials and India's rail minister Lalu Prasad had earlier put the death toll at 15, but railway authorities on Saturday said 12 people were killed.

Millions of people travel each day on India's massive rail network, one of the biggest in the world.