Accident
Train disaster with more than 200 dead shakes India
Rescue workers work at the scene of the accident. photo
© Uncredited/AP
Train accidents are common in India – but a catastrophe of this dimension is an absolute exception: several trains derailed in Balasore. Eyewitnesses report harrowing scenes.
At least 233 people died in one of the most devastating train accidents in recent decades in eastern India. In addition, around 900 people were injured, as the authorities in the state of Odisha announced on Saturday morning. Since more dead were suspected under the overturned wagons and the rescue workers had to work under difficult conditions during the night, a further increase in the number of victims was to be feared.
The disaster happened on Friday evening around 7 p.m. local time (3 p.m. CEST) in a rural area of the Balasore district, a good 200 kilometers southwest of Kolkata (formerly: Calcutta). Two passenger trains and one freight train crashed there one after the other on two parallel track sections. Exactly how, even hours after the accident, it was still not clear.
According to media reports, one of the two passenger trains probably derailed first, and the other then crashed into the wagons that were left on the tracks on the parallel route a few meters away. Which of the two trains derailed first and for what reason remained unclear at first – as did the question of whether the freight train was really parked on a different track at the time of the accident and was rammed by one of the derailed passenger trains, as some media described. Others gave different versions of what happened.
eyewitness accounts
As dawn broke on Saturday, the extent of the disaster became more apparent. About a dozen wrecked cars lay on and off the tracks, steel behemoths rearing up, some with compartment ceilings torn open, windows shattered. On and next to the wagons, dozens of helpers in civilian clothes and rescue workers in orange protective suits tried desperately to rescue injured passengers under the heavy rubble.
An eyewitness told local television station NDTV that he was jolted out of his sleep when his train suddenly derailed – and chaos broke out. “10 to 15 people fell on me,” he told the station. He himself escaped with injuries to his neck and hands, but then saw dead bodies and severed body parts everywhere.
“It was a deafening noise, I felt the ground tremble under my feet. Our train was thrown back and forth,” a passenger was quoted as saying by the Times of India newspaper. Then he looked out the window and saw the derailed wagons with people trapped underneath. “It was dark and I could hear screams.” Another man described how distraught relatives later searched for their loved ones in a field of mutilated bodies. “The sight was too horrible to describe.”
Investigation and Compensation
India’s ailing railway system with old trains and tracks in need of an overhaul is notorious for frequent accidents. But such high numbers of victims are extremely rare even in the huge country with 1.4 billion inhabitants.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ANI news agency that he had ordered an investigation into the cause of the train crash. He arrived at the scene of the accident on Saturday morning to assess the extent of the tragedy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shocked and wrote on Twitter: “At this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the grieving families.” Saturday was declared a day of mourning in Odisha.
Shortly after the accident, the prime minister’s office announced compensation for the relatives of the dead of 200,000 rupees (2,267 euros) each. Injured should therefore each get 50,000 rupees. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also pledged Rs 1 million in compensation for the families of the dead. According to the information, seriously injured people should receive 200,000 rupees each and slightly injured people 50,000 rupees each.