NEW DELHI: Mid-day searing heat claimed 157 more lives on Wednesday, pushing the toll this summer to 1,516, even as mercury slid slightly and some parts of the country received scattered rains. The heat wrath was particularly telling on Orissa where scorching weather claimed 54 more lives and sent hundreds to hospitals since Tuesday.

Mercury fell markedly in south coastal areas in Andhra Pradesh following isolated rains even as the number of deaths in the state rose to 441.

Train crash

HANOVER: Searchers recovered more than 100 bodies from the wreckage of a German high-speed passenger train which derailed and ploughed into a bridge in northern Germany on Wednesday, a spokesman said. In what could be Germany's worst ever rail crash, the train derailed at 200 km an hour at the village of Eschede near Celle. The cause of the disaster was still unclear.

A local government official said earlier that 50 people were injured. Several hundred people had beentravelling aboard the train.

Bomb blast

GUWAHATI: Suspected Bodo militants detonated a bomb at an RCC bridge over the Pagladiya river on a National Highway at Mazbat in Assam's Darrang district on Wednesday morning However, not much damage was caused to the bridge and vehicular traffic remained unaffected, the report said. This was the fourth bomb blast by the militants in the state during the past 24 hours.

Explosives found

SRINAGAR: In a major breakthrough, the Army unearthed 600 kg of explosives brought by militants to the downtown city ostensibly to trigger off blasts and foment trouble in Kashmir valley.

Charred to death

MUMBAI: Eight persons were charred to death and two seriously injured when a Mahindra Armada collided with a truck filled with coal at Narpoli on the Thane-Bhiwandi highway. According to police, the jeep turned turtle and caught fire. Most of the passengers were women. The injured have been admitted to Thane Civil Hospital. Police said the number of thejeep could not be made out as it was badly burnt.