The workers fell asleep on the tracks of the train. They were walking back to their home village after the steel company they were working for, laid them off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that an Indian train killed at least 14 migrant workers who had fallen asleep on the track on Friday while they were heading back to their home village after losing their jobs in a coronavirus lockdown, police said.

Tens of thousands of people have been walking home from India's big cities after being laid off because of the lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus since late March.

The driver tried to stop the freight train when he saw the workers on the tracks in the western state of Maharashtra, the railway ministry said, adding it had ordered an inquiry.

Fourteen people were killed and five were injured, said a railway spokesman, C.H. Rakesh.