Officials reported on Saturday that at least 288 people were killed in India’s worst rail disaster in over two decades after a passenger train derailed and collided with another train in the country’s east.
One of the trains involved in the accident on Friday also collided with a goods train parked nearby in the district of Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha, leaving a tangled mass of derailed rail cars and injuring 803.
The death toll has reached 288 according to South Eastern Railway’s principal public relations officer, KS Anand.
A Reuters witness reported that corpses are still trapped in the mangled coaches and that the rescue operation is ongoing, while the death toll is expected to rise.
Anand stated that a preliminary report indicates the accident was caused by a signal failure.
“The Coromandel Express was intended to travel on the main line, but a signal for the loop line was given instead, and the train collided with a parked good train. Its coaches then collapsed onto the adjacent tracks, derailing the Howrah Superfast Express,” he explained.
Anubha Das, a survivor, stated that he would never forget the spectacle. He stated, “Families shattered, limbless bodies, and a bloodbath on the tracks.”
Rescue teams searched the mangled carriages to extricate the survivors and transport them to the hospital, as captured on video.
People were seen seeking their loved ones at the scene and in hospitals nearby.
The bloodstained floor of a school being used as a makeshift mortuary was covered with corpses, and police assisted family members in identifying the bodies, which were wrapped in white sheets and placed in chained bags.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on the scene, converses with rescue personnel, and inspects the devastation. Additionally, he met survivors in institutions.
“I assessed the state of affairs at the site of the calamity in Odisha. No words can adequately express my profound grief. We are committed to providing all assistance feasible to those affected,” said Modi.
Before he arrived on the scene, he tweeted, “My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this time of sorrow. “May the injured quickly recover,”
A witness stated, “We have seen a large number of deaths.”
A witness who participated in rescue operations reported that the cries and wails of the injured and relatives of the deceased were disturbing. “It was horrific and heart-wrenching,” he said.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated that the families of the deceased will receive 1 million rupees ($12,000), while the severely injured will receive 200,000 rupees and minor injuries will receive 50,000 rupees. Additionally, some state governments have announced compensation.
Saturday morning footage obtained by Reuters showed police officials removing corpses wrapped in white cloths from railway tracks.
“I was asleep,” said an unidentified male survivor to NDTV news. “The din of the train derailing woke me up. Suddenly, I saw 10 to 15 lifeless bodies. I was able to exit the coach and witnessed numerous dismembered corpses.
Rescuers climbed one of the derailed trains on Friday to search for survivors, while passengers cried out for assistance and sobbed next to the wreckage.
Friday at approximately 7 p.m. (1330 GMT), the Howrah Superfast Express from Bengaluru to Howrah, West Bengal, collided with the Coromandel Express traveling from Kolkata to Chennai.
An extensive search-and-rescue operation involving hundreds of firefighters, police officers, and sniffer canines has been launched. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force were present.
On Friday, hundreds of young people in Soro, Odisha, lined up outside a government hospital to donate blood.
According to Indian Railways, its network enables the daily transportation of over thirteen million passengers. The state-owned monopoly, however, has a spotty safety record due to its aging infrastructure.
Saturday has been designated as a day of state bereavement in honor of the victims.
Pakistan expresses its condolences.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stated that he was “deeply saddened by the loss of hundreds of lives” as a result of the incident.
In a tweet, he expressed “heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families who lost loved ones in this tragedy” and prayed for a speedy recovery for the injured.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari expressed his sorrow over the “high death toll” and offered his condolences to the victims’ families while wishing the injured a speedy recovery.
India’s deadliest train crashes
Here are the specifics of some of India’s deadliest rail catastrophes in recent decades:
During a cyclone in June 1981, seven rear coaches of an overcrowded passenger train were blown off the track and plunged into a river, killing at least 800 people.
In July 1988, an express train derailed and fell into a monsoon-swollen lake at Quilon, southern India, killing 106 people.
At least 350 persons were killed when two trains collided 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Delhi in August 1995.
August 1999: Two trains collided near Calcutta, resulting in at least 285 fatalities.
Several passenger train carriages derailed near Velugonda in southern Andhra Pradesh state in October 2005. At least 77 individuals perished.
When a mail train derailed in Fatehpur in July 2011, 70 persons were killed and over 300 were injured.
An express train derailed in Uttar Pradesh, India, in November 2016, killing 146 and injuring nearly 200.
In January 2017, multiple passenger train cars derailed in Andhra Pradesh, killing 41.
In October 2018, a commuter train in Amritsar, India, killed 59 and injured 57 festivalgoers.
