According to official data, at least 238 people died in a serious train accident in India on Friday evening. Many other victims are suspected to be under the rubble. In addition, there are around 900 injured, senior Odisha state official Pradeep Kumar Jena said on Saturday evening, according to Indian news agencies ANI and PTI. Since further deaths from overturned wagons were suspected and the rescuers had to work under difficult conditions during the night, a further increase in the number of victims was to be feared.
The disaster occurred on Friday evening around 7 pm local time (15 CEST) in a rural area of Balasore district, 200 kilometers southwest of Kolkata. Two passenger trains and a freight train crashed one after the other on two sections of parallel track. How exactly – it was still unclear hours after the crash. According to media reports, one of the two passenger trains would probably have derailed earlier and the other would have then crashed into the carriages lying on the tracks of the parallel section a few meters away.
Which of the two trains derailed first and why remained unclear at first. Equally unclear was the question of whether the freight train was actually parked on a different track at the time of the accident and was rammed by one of the derailed passenger trains, as described by some media. Others have provided different versions.
By dawn on Saturday, the extent of the disaster had become clear. A dozen or so wrecked cars lay on and off the tracks, rearing behemoths of steel, some with compartment ceilings ripped open, windows shattered. Above and alongside the carriages, dozens of civilian aides and rescue workers in orange protective suits desperately tried to rescue injured passengers under the heavy rubble.
It is not yet clear how the accident could have occurred.
(Photos: AP/AP)
An eyewitness told local television station NDTV that he saw human body parts everywhere. He woke up when his train derailed. “Ten to 15 people fell on me. My hands and neck were injured,” the man said.
“It was a deafening noise, I felt the ground shaking under my feet. Our train was jolted back and forth,” a passenger told the Times of India newspaper. Then he looked out the window and saw the derailed wagons with the people trapped underneath. “It was dark and I could hear screams.” Another man described how distraught relatives later searched a field of mutilated bodies for their loved ones. “The show was too awful to describe.”
India’s ailing railway system with old trains and tracks in need of an overhaul is notorious for frequent accidents. But such a large number of victims is extremely rare even in the immense country of 1.4 billion inhabitants. Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ANI news agency that he had ordered an investigation into the cause of the train crash. He arrived at the crash site on Saturday morning to assess the extent of the tragedy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Shaken by Odisha train crash. In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the grieving families.” The premier’s office has announced compensation for the relatives of the deceased of 200,000 rupees each (about 2,267 euros). According to this, the injured should each receive 50,000 rupees (567 euros). According to the East Indian state government, this is the worst train accident in India for more than ten years.
