Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, mourned the loss of lives in a tragic train collision in India on Saturday.

Taking to Twitter, Sheikh Mohammed condoled the deaths and said, “I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the people of India in the wake of the tragic train collision. Our hearts go out to the families who lost loved ones and to the injured.”

“The UAE stands in solidarity with India during this difficult time. Our thoughts and prayers are with you,” Sheikh Mohammed tweeted.

Earlier during the day, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid also dispatched a message of condolence to Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the victims of the train collision

At least 288 people have died in India's worst rail crash in over two decades, officials said on Saturday, after a passenger train went off the tracks and hit another one in an accident a preliminary report blamed on signal failure.

One train in Friday's accident also hit a freight train parked nearby in the district of Balasore in Odisha state in the east of the country, leaving a tangled mess of smashed rail cars and injuring 803.

The death toll has reached 288, said K. S. Anand, chief public relations officer of the South Eastern Railway.