100 feared dead in Indian rail tragedy

indiamike

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) --As many as 100 people are feared dead after a passenger train derailed in a remote region of northeastern India sending at least one car plunging into a river.

Three other cars from the Kolkata-to-New Delhi Rajdhani Express were left hanging precariously above the water.

The cause of the incident is being investigated, with authorities not yet ruling out sabotage.

Railway officials say up to 100 people may have died in the accident with some 36 bodies reported recovered by midday Tuesday. The train was carrying an estimated 500 passengers.

In all, 16 of the 18 cars in the train derailed at 10:40 p.m. local time Monday (1710 GMT) as it was crossing the Dhawa River, near Rafiganj in the eastern state of Bihar.

The accident sent one car containing at least 64 people plunging into the river where it lay partially submerged in knee-deep water.

Several-hundred rescue workers were scouring the waters for survivors and attempting to remove passengers trapped in the dangling cars.

Many passengers had fallen out of the cars as they hung above the river, said Anil Saxena, a spokesman for the railway.

Army called in
Authorities said 125 people were rescued from the water and the train, and at least 65 were taken to Aurangabad Civil Hospital, Saxena said.

One official said he expected the death told to be high, but would not estimate a final number.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar arrived at the scene early Tuesday to coordinate recovery efforts.

Dozens of relatives of those traveling aboard the train have gone to New Delhi and Kolkata stations desperate for news.

Members of the Indian army have been called in to assist rescue workers and helicopters and cranes are on their way to the area.

Meanwhile officials have set up special trains to carry relatives and friends from New Delhi and Kolkata to the scene of the accident.

In all more than 500 people were on board the train at the time of the crash. Of them 325 were unhurt or received only minor injuries.

The first train carrying survivors back to Kolkata is expected to arrive in the city late Tuesday evening.

With more rescue workers traveling to the scene officials say it is still too early to say what caused the accident, although one junior railway minister has said the possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out.

However, a rail official on the crash scene said it was more likely that monsoon rains had washed away an embankment, causing the wreck.

The worst rail accident in Indian history took place on June 6, 1981, also in Bihar state.

Then more than 800 people died when a crowded express train was blown off the tracks by a cyclone and plunged into a river.

Midnite Toker

I'm actually hoping it was someone doing something stupid, not Naxalite sabotage.

__________________
travel tips, blog, downloads, panorama photos, online security, tokes:
the tokezone

abracax

Has anyone ever done a safety survey of Indian rail routes? This would consider aspects like quality of rolling stock and track maintenance (probably not too high in Bihar) and potential for disaster if things do go wrong. For instance the more bridges a route crosses, the more potential there is for something going wrong (e.g. the last two major incidents have involved trains falling off bridges).

__________________
tbontbtitq (Shakespeare's password)

indiamike

I am going to go off topic and rant about journalism in this thread a bit here. This morning when I saw this story and illegally reprinted it here there was about ten different versions of it.

This copy is reprinted from CNN which I find pretty accurate, though even looking now at the headlines on this it's hard to get any correct stats.

Teletext lists 80 people killed.

Nando Times lists 50 people killed, and by sabotage.

Jang Group lists it as 28 deaths.

MSNBC lists 100.

BBC just lists it as scores.

I know this is kind of morbid putting numbers up this way but the way news is reported now it's hard to get anything accurate.

Mike

Alan D

Old rail bridges: Tragedies waiting to happen


IANS [ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2002 3:04:59 PM ]

KOLKATA: Little has changed for about 500 old bridges in India despite Tuesday's Rajdhani Express accident in Bihar on a British-built bridge in which 125 people were killed.

At one such busy bridge near here, a tragedy is waiting to happen. The 115-year-old Jubilee bridge near Bandel town is located some 50 km from here.

Built in 1887 by the British colonial rulers, engineers gave the bridge a fitness certificate for 100 years. But the iron structure is still operational, 15 years after it officially became unfit for use.

Helpless train drivers say they have no option but to drive on the dilapidated bridge over a canal. The bridge, which handles heavy traffic, has developed a three-ft long and one-ft wide crack.

The driver of a local Burdwan-bound suburban train claims their repeated protests have fallen on deaf ears. "We are given slips instructing us to cross the bridge at 10 km per hour," he said on condition of anonymity.

According to official figures, of the 119,984 bridges in Indian Railways' 63,000 route kilometre network, 527 were "distressed" ones. They are among 3,000 bridges to be taken up for repair.

The latest accident in Bihar occurred probably because the weak 86-year-old iron bridge over the Dhabi river could not support the high-speed train coming in at about 130 km per hour.

Following the disaster, Eastern Railway, under which the Jubilee bridge falls, is to receive an additional Rs 4,500 crore for repairs and maintenance of 7,000-km of tracks under the section.

The railway ministry has said that it will spend Rs 17,000 crore over the next five years on safety measures and maintenance of the network, the world's second largest after Russia, transporting 13.6 million passengers every day in 13,500 trains.

abracax

This just in:
Cops fired to scare rescuers away from accident site


BISWAJIT ROY

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2002 2:22:22 AM ]

KOLKATA: The official death toll in Monday night’s accident involving Rajdhani Express reached 118 on Thursday. Body-bags continued to arrive here and there was still no information about the former CPM Member of Parliament.


But there is now mounting evidence that many of the passengers bled to death because ‘well-meaning’ policemen opened fire and scared away equally well-meaning villagers merely trying to rescue victims.


The police believed, mistakenly as it turned out, that villagers were busy looting the belongings.


An indignant Rakesh Kumar, a grocer from village Lavri, a kilometre from the accident site, believes it was a costly mistake.


Kumar (28) made his residential telephone with STD facility available to the passengers and thus became the lifeline to the outside world for the traumatised victims.


Rescue operations, he told TNN over telephone, actually began at dawn because the first relief train, which arrived at the site at 3.30 am, did not have sufficient ‘light’ to start the operation. Kumar himself is anguished at not being able to save the life of Chitra Sarkar.


As the badly injured lady was being carried by villagers to the Rafiganj hospital, or an apology for it, she wanted to speak to her sons in Bangalore and Delhi. Kumar, whose house is next to the hospital, extended the telephone line to the hospital and enabled her to speak to her relatives.


But hours later she died even as she was being carried to the relief train.


His telephone was used extensively and the young shopkeeper says he is grateful to God that he could be of some help. But neither the Railways nor the government offered him any compensation.


He told TNN on Thursday, “I did my duty as a human being. I am young and able to support my family. Why should I ask for money?’’ .


Meanwhile,the Railways sought to make some amends for its shoddy handling of relief-work and indicated that the city based Claims office would be authorised to settle compensation to be paid to passengers residing here.