38 dead, 150 hurt in West Bengal train accident (Third Lead)

SAINTHIA - At least 38 people were killed and 150 injured early Monday when the speeding Sealdah-bound Uttar Banga Express rammed into the stationary Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal Express from the rear at Sainthia station in West Bengal’s Birbhum district.

“Thirty-eight bodies have been recovered so far. Majority of the victims were passengers of Vananchal Express,” Additional Director General of Police (Railways) Dilip Mitra said.

The accident took place around 2.15 a.m., rudely jolting hundreds of sleeping passengers. The dead included the driver and assistant driver of the Uttar Banga Express and the guard of the Vananchal Express.

Chief Security Commissioner of Eastern Railway S. Sahoo told IANS: “We fear that more than 50 have died.”

The bodies have been sent to the district hospital in Suri, the headquarters of Birbhum district, Sainthia Government Railway Police (GRP) sources said.

“About 150 of the injured have been shifted to hospitals in Suri and Sainthia,” Sahoo said.

Five medical teams of the railways are also at the spot. The site of the accident is 191 km from Howrah on the Bolpur-Rampurhat section of Eastern Railway’s Howrah division.

An accident relief train has also reached Sainthia.

An Eastern Railway spokesman said the Vananchal Express was at platform 4 when the Uttar Banga Express, coming from New Coochbehar, hit it. Three rear coaches of the Vananchal Express bore the brunt of the collision and were badly mangled. Such was the severity of the collision that one of the coaches reached up to the overbridge and efforts were on to bring it down.

Local people from this business hub were the first to rush in for the rescue as cries of the injured passengers, many who had lost their limbs, rent the air.

The authorities, facing allegations of a delayed start to the rescue efforts, were using gas-cutters to cut open the coaches and bring out the dead and rescue the injured.

“We have managed to extricate the bodies from two of the three compartments so far,” Birbhum Police Superintendent Humayun Kabir told IANS.

Eyewitnesses said the Vananchal Express was about to leave the station when the accident occurred.

Eastern Railway General Manager V.N. Tripathy said an enquiry has been ordered into how both the trains came on to the same line.

Train movement on the down line has been disrupted in the Bolpur-Rampurhat section. The down Malda-Howrah Intercity Express were among several trains cancelled and many trains were stranded on the down line.

A railway official said except the four affected coaches, the ill-fated Vananchal Express was brought to Burdwan enroute to Ranchi. The Uttar Banga Express has been brought to Rampurhat after replacing the damaged engine.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is slated to go to the accident site later in the day.

Soon after the accident, Tripathy left for the spot in a special train.

The Eastern Railway has opened two helplines (numbers 23503537 and 23503535) at Sealdah for news of the victims.

Helplines have also been opened at Howrah, Bhagalpur and Jamalpur stations.