Lucknow, Apr 24 (PTI) An Oxygen Express train carrying around 30,000 litres of liquid medical oxygen arrived here on Saturday morning as Uttar Pradesh is battling a sudden surge in coronavirus cases, an official said.

The special train carrying two truckloads of medical oxygen arrived in the state capital at 6.30 am from Bokaro, Jharkhand.

"Two trucks of medical oxygen arrived in Lucknow at around 6.30 am. One of the trucks was offloaded in Varanasi late on Saturday. Each truck is of 15,000 litres capacity," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi told PTI.

He said both the trucks may be used for Lucknow and a decision will be taken soon.

"The arrival of two trucks of medical oxygen will meet around half the demand of Lucknow for today. Lucknow will be in a better position. The second Oxygen Express departed at around 5.30 am from Lucknow for Bokaro with four tankers," Awasthi said.

The railways on Wednesday had said it will run its second Oxygen Express to Uttar Pradesh after a request was received from the state government.

On Sunday, the Railways had announced it will run Oxygen Express over the next few days to transport oxygen across the country.

Under the initiative, empty tankers will be loaded with liquid medical oxygen from Visakhapatnam, Jamshedpur, Rourkela and Bokaro.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)