Three Trains Collided In India And At Least 295 People Are Dead And 1,175 Injured
The disaster in Odisha state is the worst train accident in India in two decades.
At least 295 people are dead and more than 1,175 others have been injured in India after three trains collided with each other on Friday June 2.
It is the worst train accident in India in two decades.
The accident in Balasore District in northeastern Odisha state began at around 7pm local time when a passenger train drove into a stationary freight train at full speed.
The crash happened at such a high speed that it caused the passenger train’s engine to climb onto the goods train.
The rest of the train carrying the passengers then derailed.
Another passenger train traveling in the opposite direction at the same time then crashed into the derailed carriages, which had fallen onto the parallel tracks.
Officials said more than 2,200 passengers had been on board the two passenger trains.
A surviving passenger named Anubha Das described the scene to Reuters as “families crushed away, limbless bodies and a bloodbath on the tracks”.
Rescuers are still continuing to pull bodies from the mangled coaches, and the death toll is expected to rise.
“We will pull the coaches up one by one but we don’t have much hope of finding survivors,” Odisha fire officials told local media on Saturday, CNN reported.
A preliminary investigation found the cause of the accident was signal error that led the first train to wrongly change tracks and drive into the freight train, officials said.
Authorities said they would be looking into what had caused the signal error.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who had been expected to inaugurate a new high speed train line on Saturday, instead visited the scene, where he examined the rescue effort and paid a visit to those injured in a hospital.
Modi told reporters he was “feeling the pain of those who have suffered in the accident” and would ensure his government does it best to help them and punish those responsible, according to AP.
The crash has renewed calls for authorities to address the safety of India’s railway system, which transports more than 13 million passengers every day in the world most populous nation, according to CNN.
