A school bus driver was allegedly on his phone when he crashed into an oncoming train at an unmanned railway crossing in Telangana on Thursday morning, killing at least 17 children, NDTV reported. The driver, who had not stopped to check if the way was clear, was also pronounced dead.

The accident, which took place in the Medak district, 70 kilometers from the state capital of Hyderabad, India, was transporting nearly 40 children of a private school, most of them below the age of 11. After colliding with the train, the bus was dragged about a kilometer down the tracks, witnesses said.

Apart from 21 children being wounded and taken to a nearby hospital in Secundrabad, the bus cleaner and the father of one of the victim, who collapsed on reaching the site, also died. As rescue workers tried to pull out the children from the wreckage, television footage showed parents sitting with dead bodies of their children in their laps, with many mothers holding the children they had prepared for school just an hour before.

Schoolbags and water-bottles lay scattered under the mangled remains of the bus as hundreds of people sat and mourned, not all of them related to the children.

Instead of taking a route that had proper, manned railway crossings, the temporary driver allegedly took the shorter unsafe route as the train traveled from Nanded in Maharashtra to Hyderabad in Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh last month.

"The accident sparked anger among local people, who say they have been asking for gates to secure the railway crossing in the district," according to NDTV. "In Parliament, Railways Minister Sadananda Gowda faced loud protests as members demanded to know why safety was neglected."

India's vast but decrepit railway network witnesses about 15,000 people getting killed each year while crossing the dangerous tracks, according to a government safety panel. Two years ago, the panel recommended that more bridges and overpasses be built on priority.