Two trains collided head-on Tuesday in northern India, killing at least 31 people in a crash that the railway minister called "brutal murder." Officials blamed the disaster on a communication problem.
At least 50 people were injured, with 16 of them in serious condition, after the crash in rural northern Punjab state, railway officials said.
PHOTO: AFP
A "communications snag" between stationmasters at two stations apparently caused the crash, with an express train and a local train allowed to travel toward each other on the same track, said Dha-ram Singh, the top railway official in the area.
"I don't consider it an accident. It is nothing less than a brutal murder," federal Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav said at the site, speaking through a megaphone in front of the wreckage. He said at least 31 people were dead.
The two stationmasters, as well as an engineer who allegedly did not prevent the two trains from moving on the same track, had been sacked and would face criminal charges of culpable homicide, Yadav said.
The accident highlighted blind spots in India's huge train net-work, often criticized for poor safety standards.
Villagers from nearby areas were among the first at the site, driving tractors and carrying metal rods, axes and ropes to pull people out and transport the dead and injured. They also helped set up free soup kitchens and first aid centers near the site.
Soldiers rushed from a nearby base, climbing onto the wreckage and pulling out bodies and survivors as welders cut into the metal.
"I felt a violent jerk, and the next moment I realized everybody was jumping out to save their lives. As we came out we saw the passenger train engine on fire and twisted pieces of iron all around," Neeta Mohindroo, a passenger on the express train, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency.
The drivers of both trains died.
Deputy Commissioner Harjit Singh, who supervised the rescue operations, said all bodies had been found except that of the express train's assistant driver, which was trapped in the twisted metal of the engine.
It was India's second major train accident this year. In June, 14 people died when a high-speed train derailed after hitting loose boulders on the track in western Maharashtra state.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
Prime ministers, presidents and royalty on Saturday descended on Cairo to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities. The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, the COVID-19 pandemic and wars in neighboring countries. “We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a news conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a
RSS