Families, rescuers search for victims of India's worst train crash in decades
World
A preliminary report indicated that failure of a signal caused the crash
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Rescuers and families searched through mangled train carriages on Sunday for more victims of India's worst rail crash in more than two decades with signal failure emerging as the likely cause.
At least 288 people were killed on Friday when a passenger train went off the tracks and hit another one near the district of Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha.
Five more bodies were brought to a school being used as a mortuary near the scene of the accident early on Sunday.
"We do not know how many more bodies will come," a health worker said.
Indian Railways says it transports more than 13 million people every day. But the state-run monopoly has had a patchy safety record because of ageing infrastructure.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces an election due next year, visited the scene on Saturday to talk to rescue workers, inspect the wreckage and meet some of the nearly 1,200 injured.
The South Eastern Railway has said a preliminary report indicated that the accident was the result of signal failure.
Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also hinted that an error in the electronic signaling system led a train to wrongly change tracks.
”Who has done it and what is the reason will come out of an investigation,” he said in an interview with New Delhi Television network.
Workers with heavy machinery were clearing the damaged track, wrecked trains and electric cables, as distraught relatives looked on.
"We were called by the police and asked to come," said Baisakhi Dhar from West Bengal state, searching for her husband Nikhil Dhar.
She said her husband's luggage and mobile had been found but had no information on his whereabouts.
More than a 1,000 people are involved in the rescue, the Railway Ministry said on Twitter.
"The target is by Wednesday morning the entire restoration work is complete and tracks should be working," said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
At a business centre where bodies are taken for identification, dozens of relatives waited, many weeping and clutching identification cards and pictures of missing loved-ones.
Families of the dead will get 1 million rupees ($12,000) in compensation, while the seriously injured will get 200,000 rupees, with 50,000 rupees for minor injuries, Vaishnaw said on Saturday.
US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed condolences.
The past
India has one of the world's largest rail networks and has seen several disasters over the years, the worst of them in 1981 when a train derailed while crossing a bridge in Bihar and plunged into the river below, killing between 800 and 1,000 people.
In 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst train accidents in India. In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
Friday's crash ranks as its third worst, and the deadliest since 1995, when two express trains collided in Firozabad, near Agra, killing more than 300 people.
Odisha state's chief secretary Pradeep Jena confirmed that about 900 injured people had been hospitalised.
Rescue teams including from the National Disaster Response Force and air force were deployed, while the railways ministry announced an investigation.
Authorities said every hospital between the crash site and the state capital Bhubaneswar around 200 kilometres (125 miles) away was receiving victims, with 200 ambulances - and even buses - deployed to transport them.
At Bhadrak District Hospital, bloodied and shocked survivors were receiving treatment in crowded wards.
The disaster comes despite new investments and upgrades in technology that have significantly improved railway safety in recent years.
