Rescuers yesterday battled to pull survivors from the wreckage of a train crash that killed at least 36 passengers in southern India, the latest in a series of disasters on the country’s creaking rail network.
At least 50 people were injured on Saturday night when nine coaches of the passenger Hirakhand Express train from Jagdalpur to Bhubaneswar derailed at about 11:20pm near Kuneru Station, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, about 30km outside the town of Rayagada.
“The rescue operation is almost over,” said J.P. Mishra, the chief public relations officer at East Coast Railway zone, which has jurisdiction over the area.
Photo: AFP
“Our first priority is to take care of the injured passengers and provide them proper treatment by shifting them to hospitals. We are also searching all the coaches to ensure that nobody remains stranded in them,” he said.
The reason for the derailment has not been ascertained, Mishra said, adding that they were not ruling out any possibility of foul play and investigations will be conducted.
Video footage from the scene showed members of the disaster management team and locals trying to rescue trapped passengers from windows and debris using mobile phones to provide light with the train’s bogie wheels tilted off the railway track and mangled wreckage all over the spot.
“Nine bogies were derailed of which three have turned and fallen off the track,” local Superintendent of Police L.K.V. Ranga Rao said. “Most of the casualties and deaths are from the three sleeper-class compartments.”
“Anguished to learn about the train accident near Vizianagaram,” Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu said on Twitter, offering his condolences to the families of the victims. “We are investigating the reason for accident.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted that the tragedy was “saddening” and said the Indian Ministry of Railways was working to ensure quick relief and rescue operations.
National railway spokesman Anil Saxena said government officials and emergency workers worked through the night to try to find survivors.
Saxena said investigators were considering possible sabotage of the tracks by Maoist rebels, who were active in the area.
“It is being looked into, it is one of the many angles we are looking into,” he said. “There is some suspicion [of sabotage] because two other trains had crossed over smoothly using the same tracks earlier in the night.”
Mishra told the NDTV news network there were some 600 people in the carriages that derailed.
On Friday, 10 coaches of an express train derailed in the western state of Rajasthan, leaving many passengers with minor injuries.
A 2012 government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on India’s railways and described the loss of life as an annual “massacre.”
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