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Indian officials avoided commenting on the future of the peace talks today, but showed an unusual spirit of cooperation with their Pakistani counterparts.

Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, expressed “anguish and grief” at the loss of life and vowed to catch the culprits, according to a statement.

Other world leaders also condemned the attack and urged India and Pakistan not to abandon the peace process.

“I was shocked to learn of the devastating loss of life on the Samjhauta Express,” Kim Howells, the British Foreign Office Minister, said in a statement. “I extend my condolences to the family and friends of those killed and injured and condemn this utterly shameful act.”

Officials in Pakistan said there were 553 Pakistani nationals among the 757 passengers on board the Samjhauta (Friendship)Express, one of only two train links set up between the neighbouring countries under the three-year-old peace process. The vast majority of the remaining passengers were thought to be Indian.

The train link was suspended after an attack in 2001 on the Indian Parliament that Delhi blamed on Pakistan and which nearly led to a war between the two. Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have warmed in recent years, and the train service, which was restarted in 2004, is one of the most visible results of the peace process.

Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry, said that officials from Pakistan’s high commission were heading to the scene and that the aftermath operation was “being carried out in cooperation with Pakistani authorities”. He added that visas would be issued quickly for Pakistani relatives of the dead and injured.

Survivors today reported scenes of horror as the train slowed to a halt on an isolated stretch of railway line in village of Dewana, about 80km (50 miles) north of Delhi. As on most Indian trains, the windows of many cars are barred for security reasons, sealing in many survivors, and officials said at least one train door was fused shut by the intense heat.

“We couldn’t save anyone,” said Rajinder Prasad, a labourer living near the tracks who raced to the scene. He told of how he scooped water from a reservoir and threw it at flames as they shot high above the carriages but was unable to help the victims. “They were screaming inside, but no one could get out.”

Eventually, he said, the screaming stopped.

Rakesh Gautam, a reporter with a Hindi-language newspaper, Dainik Jagran, and one of the first people to arrive at the scene, said that some people remained alive in the flaming carriages for nearly half an hour. “Inside you could see trapped people trying to break windows, but after a while the train got so hot that the efforts stopped,” he said.

Vinod Kumar Gupta, the assistant manager in the Dewana station, said he saw the blaze break out as the train passed through his normally quiet village.

He ran to his booth to pull the signal ordering the train to stop, claiming the driver had no idea what was going on behind him. “I saw flames leaping out of the windows. That’s when I tried to stop the train,” he said.

He said it was about five minutes until the vehicle - which normally races without stopping through the station at about 60 miles per hour - was able to come to a halt in a stretch of rural countryside.

“From the less damaged coach, some people were seen jumping out with their bodies on fire,” Bharti Arora, the superintendent of the Haryana state railway police, told reporters at the scene.

At least 30 passengers suffering from burns or other injuries were being treated in hospital in the nearby town of Panipat, V.N. Mathur, the general manager of the Northern Railway, said. It is now understood the wounded have all been taken to a hospital in Delhi.

At the time of the explosions, the train was travelling from the capital to Atari, the last railroad station before the border with Pakistan. At Atari passengers change trains, switching to a Pakistani train that takes them to the city of Lahore.

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