At least 40 people were killed and more than 70 injured when a train derailed Thursday night in northwestern Turkey.

The accident occurred with a train travelling from Istanbul to the capital Ankara when four carriages overturned near the town of Pamukova, Turkish province of Sakarya.

It was a so-called fast train, which had recently started accelerated voyages between Ankara and Istanbul. There had been criticism that the infrastructure was not suitable for such a project launched on June 4.

Ali Kemal Ergulec, vice president of Turkish railroad services, said Train 1106 was en route from Istanbul to Ankara when four cars derailed bar near Pamukova, a small town near the epicenter of a 1999 earthquake.

Body parts strewn over the ground and bodies lying all over the place have been witnessed on the scene of accident.

The train, with a capacity to pack about 234 passengers and 12-member crew, departed Istanbul at 6 p.m. (11 a.m. ET). The wreck occurred at 7.45 p.m. (12.45 p.m. ET), CNNTurk.com reported.

The number of victims in the deadly train derailment has been drastically revised to 36 after the Transport Ministry's crisis centre convened immediately after the tragedy.

It had earlier announced that 139 died and 74 others wounded as the high-speed train's carriages went off the tracks near Pamukova town.

There were conflicting reports on the number of those injured, which was earlier put at 57, but then set at 55. "There were mistakes in the number of the dead and injured because of contradictory information coming in," an official told the Anadolu agency.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled his trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, scheduled for Friday, and immediately headed for the scene of the deadly train accident.

Meanwhile, the Red Crescent sent blood, five ambulances, five doctors, five nurses, 1,000 liters of water, food for 400 people, and a winch to the site of tragedy.

A technical team had reached the area to investigate the cause of the derailment, which is yet to be identified.

The trains travel at speeds of up to 150 km per hour, reducing the duration of the trip of 567 km to five hours. The train was supposed to be travelling at a speed of 75 to 80 km at the site of the crash, railway officials said.

The train was one of a number of new express trains which came into service last month, offering faster trips between Ankara and Istanbul following renovation on existing tracks. But critics had said the infrastructure was not suitable for such a project.

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