Limbs of victims being found from accident site

SAINTHIA - Severed limbs of victims were found Tuesday by rescue workers from the site of the ghastly train accident here in West Bengal’s Birbhum district as railwaymen worked overtime to repair the damaged footbridge where one of the coaches of the Vananchal Express had incredibly mounted after being slammed from the rear by the speeding Uttar Banga Express early Monday.

Officials said the death toll had risen to 63, while 34 of the seriously injured were shifted to Burdwan Medical College and Hospital and six others to hospitals in Kolkata, about 190 km from here.

Over 150 people had been injured in the accident that occurred when the engine of the Uttar Banga Express ploughed through the three compartments of the stationary Vananchal Express at the small Sainthia station in the dead of the night.

The railways have already ordered an inquiry on how two trains could come on to the same downline at the station in the Bolpur-Rampurhat section of Eastern Railway’s Howrah division. Official negligence is seen as the main reason for the accident, the second train disaster in West Bengal in two months in which over 200 people have died.

Meanwhile, train services returned to normal on the downline as workers were seen cleaning up the splintered scraps of the two trains lying on the track.

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel have been deployed to keep away a large number of onlookers from nearby villages who continue to crowd the area.

A team of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal Police visited the site of the accident and also went to the Suri district hospital where most of the injured have been admitted. An 11-memer CID team also visited the Burdwan Medical College.

Relatives of the dead and the injured were seen moving around the hospital, and many of them complained of harassment in making arrangements for treatment of their relatives.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, during whose 14-month charge over 425 people have died in railway accidents in the country, according to published reports, continued to face flak from the public. Many blamed her neglect of the ministry, while concentrating on the politics of her home state of West Bengal with an aim to grab power there from the Communists, for the mismanagement of the railway system which runs over 18,500 trains and ferries 19 million passengers every day.

The Sainthia accident is the second railway disaster in the state in less than two months. On May 28 148 railway passengers and employees died when Maoist guerillas cut open the pandrol clips, used to fix the rail to the sleeper, near Jhargram in West Midnapore district derailing the Gyaneshwari Express. After the Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express derailed, a freight train approaching from the opposite direction rammed into five derailed coaches, resulting in the high casualties.