KHANPUR, India - Welders cut through metal and soldiers pulled bodies from the crushed cars of two trains that collided head-on Tuesday in northern India, killing 37 people. The railway minister said the crash was "nothing less than a brutal murder."

At least 40 people were injured, with 16 of them in serious condition, after the crash in rural northern Punjab state, railway officials said.

A "communications snag" between stationmasters at two stations apparently caused the crash, with an express train and a local train allowed to travel toward each other on the same track, said Dharam Singh, the top railway official in the area.

"I don't consider it an accident. It is nothing less than a brutal murder," federal Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav told reporters at the site.

The two stationmasters, as well as an engineer who allegedly did not prevent the two trains from moving on the same track, had been fired and would face criminal charges of culpable homicide, Yadav said.

Soldiers from a nearby base rushed to the scene of the crash amid wheat fields about 180 miles northwest of New Delhi. The troops climbed onto the wreckage and pulled out bodies and survivors as welders cut into the metal.

The drivers of both trains were killed, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

ATHENS, Greece - Two armed men hijacked a bus carrying more than two dozen passengers early today, demanding to be taken to the airport and put on a plane to Russia, officials said. A hostage said the men had dynamite.The men seized the bus at 5:50 a.m. about 10 miles east of the city center. The bus driver and two others escaped soon after the hijacking, and five others were released about six hours into the standoff, officials said. Some 21 others remained inside.Government sources confirmed the two men were demanding that a driver take them to the airport. Their nationalities remained unclear.But Albanian Ambassador Bashkim Zeneli said police asked for his help because they thought the hijackers were Albanian.The hijackers were armed with at least one pump action shotgun, which they were seen firing out of a bus window. It was unclear whether they actually had explosives.The bus driver took the bus keys with him when he escaped.By The Associated Press