DIBYANGSHU SARKAR / AFP
Police officers inspect train carriages destroyed in Friday’s dramatic collision of three trains near Balasore, in the Indian state of Odisha.
INDIA – The final mysteries surrounding India’s deadliest train disaster in decades are slowly being revealed. This Sunday, June 4, Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that a problem in the electronic switching system was at the root of the tragedy that resulted in the deaths of at least 288 people.
“We have identified the cause of the accident and the people responsible for it,” Ashwini Vaishnaw also assured ANI news agency on Sunday, adding that it was “inappropriate” to reveal further details before the final investigation report.
According to the minister, “the change that occurred during electronic switching is the cause of the accident,” referring to the complex computer system that controls traffic on Indian railways to prevent trains from colliding.
“The perpetrator and the manner in which the accident occurred will be determined after a proper investigation,” he said at the time. “No one responsible for the accident” will be spared, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised, hoping “to get out of this sad moment as soon as possible,” he told public broadcaster Doordarshan.
” Human error “
The first conclusions of the investigation are not yet available, but the Times of India on Sunday, citing a preliminary investigation report, pointed out that a “human error” in signaling could have caused the three-train collision.
The Coromandel Express, which connects Kolkata with Madras, had been given the green light to operate on the main line but was diverted to a track where a freight train was already berthing, the newspaper said.
The passenger train then, traveling at around 130 km/h, crashed into the freight convoy near Balasore, some 200 kilometers from Bhubaneswar, the capital of India’s eastern state of Odisha. Three wagons then fell onto the adjacent track and crashed into the rear of an express train running between Bangalore and Kolkata. This collision caused the most damage, adds the Times of India.
An assessment is still uncertain
The preliminary number of three-train collisions on Friday put at least 288 fatalities. However, the death toll could be much higher, reaching 380 dead, according to Sudhanshu Sarangi, chief executive of Odisha State Fire Service.
Especially since many families of the victims are still looking for their missing relatives. Rescue work at the scene of the train accident was completed on Saturday, an emergency official said.
Meanwhile, Odisha State Prime Minister Pradeep Jena confirmed that around 900 injured people had been hospitalized.
After more than 24 hours of searing heat at the scene of the accident, the bodies are “largely unrecognizable,” according to Arvind Agarwal, director of a makeshift high school morgue. “So the biggest ordeal (for the families) is identifying the bodies,” he adds. Arwind Agarwal has previously warned families they will likely need to undergo DNA testing to identify the bodies.
As of this writing, this train accident is the deadliest in India since 1995, when two express trains collided in Firozabad near Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, killing more than 300 people.
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