Landhi train accident: Culprits to be ousted within 8 days
Railways Minister says signal, other systems were working fine, accident seems to be human error
KARACHI: (Dunya News) – Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has on Friday said that the Landhi train accident seemed to be caused by human error as the signal and other systems were working fine. He said that the inquiry will be completed within eight days and those found responsible will be ousted, reported Dunya News.
Talking to media in Karachi, Saad Rafique said that he was ready to resign if that helped improve the situation in Railways. Earlier, the minister also inspected the repair works going on in Jumma Goth. The repair work on the affected railway track is complete.
Also read: Driver, assistant driver responsible for Landhi train accident: Saad
Talking to President Dunya Media Group Kamran Khan, Saad Rafique said that the reason behind the accident was that the driver didn’t slow down when he was given the Yellow signal and then didn’t stop on the Red light either. He said that the train had to stop at the station for one minute but didn’t stop and hit the next train that was still picking up after its own stop.
The minister said that mistakes of just two people caused the deaths of 22 people. He said that the driver and the assistant driver were still missing. “However, we are looking for them and they cannot hide for long”, he said.
Saad Rafique said that the ministry was doing its best to improve the training of the workers and had arranged workshops in this regard. “When I took over the ministry, we had acute shortage of drivers and assistant drivers. We employed more new drivers and also brought back some retired drivers, who were in better physical condition, on contracts. But these human errors are the major reason behind these accidents and they also bring a bad name to the department as well”, he said.
Talking about this particular incident, Saad Rafique said that the driver should have slowed down when he was given a Yellow signal and then he had to stop upon Red signal as well but he didn’t do any of the two. He told that there was another train at some distance ahead but it was slow because it was still in the phase of picking up speed after leaving a station. However, the train behind it didn’t follow its signals and hit it, causing deaths of 22 and leaving several injured.
Railways Minister said that he was trying hard to improve the system, as well as the skills of the workers, but such incidents were still bringing bad name to the department.
