After the serious train accident in India, there is knowledge about the course of the disaster and the possible cause of the accident. Apparently, a fault in the signaling system caused a train to end up on the wrong track.
It’s eerily quiet at the scene of the accident this morning, a good 36 hours after the disaster. Some excavators clear away smaller pieces of debris. 50, maybe 100 helpers are standing around, but the paramedics are gone and so are the ambulances. To do this, a single locomotive is carefully driven to the scene of the accident in order to pull away the wagons that are still on the tracks.
The rescue operation ended yesterday afternoon. The number of dead is approaching 300, the information about the injured varies between 650 and 1000. Even a day and a half later, it is apparently still difficult to get an overview of who was taken to which hospital. One thing is clear: numerous seriously injured people are still struggling with death, and the number of victims can still rise.
Impressions “almost like in war”
Anubhav Das was lucky. The 27-year-old was able to free himself from the rubble on Friday evening. He described the horror he experienced to the AFP news agency: “The impact was so devastating and so strong that there were bodies that were thrown more than 30, 35 meters from the train tracks. It was the scene of an extreme disaster. So many dead , it was almost like war.”
Now it is also about reconstructing the course of the catastrophe. And, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday during a visit to the scene of the accident, it is also a matter of finding the guilty party: “None of those responsible will be spared, and they will receive the harshest punishment.”
Indian Prime Minister Modi visited the accident site in Odisha state yesterday.
According to consistent reports from the Indian media, a train in the eastern Indian state of Odisha ran onto the wrong track around 7 p.m. on Friday evening. The so-called Coromandel Shalimar Express – a long-distance train with 1,500 passengers traveling from Calcutta to Chennai, almost 1,700 kilometers away. However, there was a freight train on this track, which the long-distance train was driving into. 21 wagons derailed, three of which ended up on a parallel track. Moments later, an express train came from the opposite direction and crashed into the scene of the accident – the disaster was complete.
Wrong signal led to chain reaction
India’s Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in the morning that the public would soon know more: “The investigation has been completed. The person in charge of railway safety will present his investigation report as soon as possible. Then all the facts will come to light. But the cause of this terrible and painful Incident is already known.”
According to the railway minister, it was an error in the electronic signaling system that triggered the fatal chain reaction. This led to a train changing tracks by mistake.
Most of the rail network is old
In the Indian media, like here on the television station NDTV, there is already a discussion as to whether India’s rail network needs more safety technology. An automatic braking system, for example, which so far only exists for a fraction of the network.
In fact, there are state-of-the-art routes with new trains in India – flagship projects of the Modi government. But the majority of this, at 68,000 kilometers, the world’s fourth-largest railway network, is still old and often dilapidated. Trains, rails, bridges – there is a lot to do. The question is whether something is going to happen as a result of this tragedy or whether it’s just a matter of finding and prosecuting the guilty.