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| Railway workers in India on Sunday at the site of a three-train crash. Atul Loke for The New York Times |
The crushed train cars were cleared, and the chaotic tracks straightened and rejoined as workers laboured to restore a vital rail line in east India two days after the country’s worst train disaster in decades. Families of the victims were still struggling to reach the wreck's site near the town of Balasore in Odisha State. Officials intensified the investigation into the cause of the crash, saying that while looking into the malfunction of an electronic signalling system, they did not rule out human error or even sabotage. Officials said a special train would ferry relatives from the city of Kolkata, in the neighbouring state of West Bengal, to Odisha, and the government of Odisha announced free bus service on the disrupted train route. The disaster cast a pall over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to modernise the country’s infrastructure, but a recent official audit noted a glaring imbalance in the budgets.
India's railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, announced that officials were investigating whether the electronic signal system to prevent accidents had not functioned as intended. He left open the possibility of sabotage and vowed punishment for anyone found responsible. The railway authorities have also asked India's premier investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to take over the inquiry. Railway officials grumbled in private that by initiating a high-profile search, political leaders were looking for scapegoats to distract from the fact that the work of assuring safety on the country's vast railway network remains deeply underfunded. For the families that travelled to the crash site, identifying and claiming their loved ones was slow and traumatic.
Of the 275 people killed in the crash, only 88 bodies had been returned to their families since the crash. More than 1,100 others were injured. The government in Odisha moved about 100 bodies to the morgue at the main hospital in Bhubaneswar. It published online the photos of more than 160 dead, many in gruesome condition, to help families identify victims. The Coromandel Express was carrying two friends, Debpriya Pramanik and Budhadeb Das, who were returning from their village of Baliara, in West Bengal, to their construction jobs in the southern city of Vijayawada. They had persuaded a third friend, Shamik Dutta, to join them.
Mr Dutta had hardly left Baliara before, but his two friends convinced him the money they could make in Vijayawada was worth it. The three friends stood near the door of a crowded compartment, where people were packed shoulder to shoulder. The Coromandel Express and Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express crashed in Balasore, India, at 6:55 p.m. on Friday. The Coromandel had departed Kolkata with 1,250 passengers and was passing the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore at 80 miles an hour.
At the same time, the Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express was exiting the station and heading in the opposite direction. At 6:55 p.m., the Coromandel suddenly veered onto a looping track where a freight train was parked. As the first train smashed into the freight train, nearly 20 of the passenger cars derailed. Two senior railway officials, speaking to reporters in Delhi, said they had firmly established several factors: the Coromandel had received a green signal as it reached the Bahanaga Bazar station, the train was not speeding, and it had not crossed a red alert.
The tracks on the South Eastern Railway in India are managed by an "interlocking system" that determines what signal will be given to a train. Investigators are studying why the loop remained open and whether an additional layer of human oversight had failed. The crash occurred on the South Eastern Railway, a crucial network for millions of migrant workers who travel cheaply on fast trains. During the collision, Mr Das was knocked out and suffered minor injuries. Mr Pramanik emerged with a fractured arm and head injuries.
Mr Das travelled to a mortuary a few miles away and found Mr Dutta's body wrapped in a white sheet. Mr Das said he did not recognise his friend's face, only the clothes he had been wearing when they boarded the train.
This article is initially published by nytimes.com by Sameer Yasir, Mujib Mashal and Suhasini Raj
