One of the train services involved in a triple collision in India’s deadliest railway disaster for decades resumed journeys on Wednesday, as officials revised the death toll up to 288.
“The Coromandal Express
is back on track,” railway spokesman Aditya Kumar Chaudhary said, with a train
departing Shalimar station near Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon on a 25-hour
journey south to Chennai.
The train, which was full, chugged out of the station five minutes behind
the scheduled time as scores of people looked on.
The service was one of
three trains involved in the crash near Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha
on Friday.
As usual, long and winding queues formed for the train’s unreserved
section.
“Four friends who were travelling on the ill-fated train went
missing after the accident on Friday,” said Samaresh Mondal, 30, a migrant
worker in the line.
“I am ready to accept my
destiny. I am forced to go to Chennai to earn bread for me and my family.”
Pradeep Jena, Odisha’s
top civil servant, said late on Tuesday that the official death toll had risen
to 288.
At least 1,175 people
were injured, with many of them in critical condition and still being treated
in hospital.
Jena said the revised
toll came after deaths were tallied from both hospitals and mortuaries and
noted that 83 bodies remain unidentified.
Medical centres were overwhelmed by the number of casualties and there
are fears the death toll could rise further.
The Coromandal Express was diverted onto a loop line before it slammed
into a stationary goods train.
The collision flipped the
carriages of the Coromandal Express onto another track.
The derailed compartments
were then struck by the rear carriages of another train, the Howrah Superfast
Express from India’s tech hub Bengaluru, which was passing in the opposite
direction.
While trains began
operating late Sunday past the crash site, Wednesday’s journey is the first
service of the Coromandal Express to resume the route.
“We are very much worried after Friday’s devastating accident,” said
Pinki Bhuniya, 36, travelling with her husband and daughter.
“We have no alternative
but to travel in trains because air tickets are too expensive for us.”
Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s
railway minister, has said the crash happened due to the “change that occurred
during electronic interlocking”, a technical term for a complex signal system
designed to stop trains colliding.
A six-member team from
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation examined the crash site on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi has said “no one responsible” would be spared.
India has one of the world’s largest rail networks and has seen several
disasters over the years, the worst in 1981 when a train derailed while
crossing a bridge in Bihar and plunged into a river below, killing 800 people.
The Balasore crash is
India’s third worst and the deadliest since 1995, when more than 300 people
died as trains collided in Firozabad near Agra.
“We have no faith in the
railways’ safety and security,” Mondal added before boarding Wednesday’s train.
“We believe that only God can save us.”
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