Dhaka, Bangladesh: A Bangladesh railway employee was hit and killed by a train after saving a mother and daughter from being run over, an official said Saturday.

Railroad maintenance worker Badal Mia, 58, was on duty in the capital Dhaka on Friday when he noticed a woman and five-year-old girl trying to cross the track as an inter-city train approached them at full speed, divisional railway manager Arif-uz Zaman said.

"Mia jumped and pushed them away from the track, he managed to save both of them. But he was run over by the train as he tried to jump away from the track," Zaman told AFP.

"He died on the spot. It's shocking for us to lose a colleague like this but Mia has set an example of gallantry and true heroism," he said.

The father of eight was only a few months away from his retirement, local media reported.

Last month a 50-year-old railway lineman also risked his life by dragging a man off the track a moment before a train approached. He was rewarded by the authorities.

Fatal railway accidents are common in the south Asian country where some 40 percent of around 2,500 rail crossings are unmanned.

In the last six years at least 152 people were killed in railway accidents, official figures show.