Train tragedy in West Bengal again - 60 dead, 157 injured (Roundup)

SAINTHIA - A speeding express train ploughed through a train standing at a station in West Bengal’s Birbhum district early Monday, killing at least 61 people and injuring more than 150. It was the second train disaster in the Communist-ruled state in less than two months that has taken a toll of over 200 lives.

The Sealdah-bound Uttar Banga Express slammed into three coaches, one luggage van and two unreserved second class coaches, of the stationary Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal Express at Sainthia station in Birbhum, about 190 km from Kolkata, at about 2.15 a.m., railway authorities said.

All three coaches were badly mangled by the severity of the collision with one of the coaches shooting from the tracks and almost mounting the footbridge above.

Gas cutters were used to cut open the coaches and bring out the dead and rescue the injured.

“Many of the bodies got pasted in the coaches. In some cases, we only managed to extricate body parts, rather than whole bodies,” said a rescue worker.

While the army was called in to help, locals were the first to rush to help as cries of the injured passengers, many of whom had lost their limbs, cut through the dark night.

Said a woman, who was travelling with her child and was jolted out of sleep: “I saw there were many injured people in the coach ahead of ours. Many had lost their upper or lower limbs. Some others had lost the upper parts of the body.”

Among the dead were 58 passengers and three employees of the India Railways that runs 10,000 passengers trains a day that ferries 1.8 million passsengers, the largest under a single operator in the world. The toll was expected to go up with 37 of the 157 injured in a critical condition.

The three railway employees who died are driver M.C. Dey, assistant driver N.K. Mandal of the Uttar Banga Express and the guard of the Vananchal Express A. Mukherjee.

As relatives of the passengers in the two trains frantically looked for some information, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed shock at the second accident in less than two months in her home state.

The official position of the railways was that the possible cause could be that the driver of the Uttar Banga Express overshot the signal. Others said the signal system could also have failed. Brake failure and inattentiveness of officials at Sainthia could be a factor.

The train, sources said, was running at 110 km per hour and had made an unscheduled stop at Gadadharpur station just nine kilometres away.

Why, they asked, was the train going at such high speeds minutes before the scheduled Sainthia stop.

Banerjee also had her doubts about how the accident occurred.

She told reporters at Sainthia: “I have some doubt in my mind regarding how the accident was caused. We will talk about it after detailed investigation.”

The accident occurred 52 days after the Gyaneshwari Express tragedy on May 28 in which 148 people died as Maoist guerrillas cut open the pandrol clips ((used to fix the rail to the sleeper) near Jhargram in West Midnapore district of the state that is ruled by a Marxist-led left coalition for nearly three and a half decades.

Bodies from Sainthia were sent to the district hospital Suri, the headquarters of Birbhum district, which with a 50-bed surgical ward was ill-equipped to handle the numbers of injured, Government Railway Police (GRP) sources said.

While the railway ministry announced compensation of Rs.5 lakh to the kin of those killed and a job, the state government said it would give Rs.3 lakh each.

Banerjee also announced compensation of Rs.1 lakh for the grievously injured and Rs.25,000 for those who sustained minor injuries while the West Bengal government promised to bear all the expenses.

The tragedy, ahead of the elections next year, also set political temperatures boiling with the ruling CPI-M asking Banerjee, chief of the opposition Trinamool Congress, to accept responsibility.

The Commissioner of Railway Safety will conduct a probe.