BALASORE, India: Passenger and freight trains started running again on Monday at the site of India’s deadliest train crash in decades, which officials said was caused by failures linked to the signal system.
Trains rumbled past the debris of smashed carriages from Friday night’s collision near Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha, where nearly 300 people were killed and hundreds injured. Officials had initially reported the death toll stood at 288, but the Odisha state government has since revised the toll down to 275 after some bodies were mistakenly counted twice.
The authorities in India said that of the 1,175 injured, 382 were still being treated in hospital. However, many fear the death toll could still climb with medical centres overwhelmed by the number of casualties, many in serious condition. Green netting was erected on either side of the tracks, shielding the crumpled carriages from the view of travelling passengers.
Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was seen folding his hands in prayer as he saw the first train cross the site of the disaster late Sunday. The railways ministry said the first train, a goods train loaded with coal, started 51 hours after the crash.
It was not immediately clear if all the tracks had been fully repaired, with trains on Monday using only lines on one side.
There was confusion about the exact sequence of events Friday, but reports cited railway officials saying a signalling error had sent the Coromandal Express running south from Kolkata to Chennai onto a side track. It slammed into a freight train and the wreckage derailed an express running north from India’s tech hub Bengaluru to Kolkata.
Vaishnaw said on Sunday the crash happened due to the “change that occurred during electronic interlocking”, referring to a technical term for a complex signal system designed to stop trains colliding by arranging their movement on the tracks. “Whoever did it, and how it happened, will be found out after proper investigation,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had, on Saturday visited the crash site and injured passengers in hospital and said “no one responsible” would be spared. — AFP
