BALASORE/BHUBANESWAR : A large crane and bulldozer are used to lift a car damaged by the collapse of another car, while rescuers use gas torches and electric cutters to lift survivors and dead . . At least 238 people were killed and more than 900 injured in a series of derailments in Odisha’s Barasur district, which destroyed steel girders of three trains, according to officials and witnesses on Saturday.
Officials in Bhubaneshwar said 1,200 personnel were deployed at the crash site, along with 200 ambulances, 50 buses and 45 mobile medical units. The bodies were transported to the hospital in various vehicles, including tractors.
“The death toll in the Balasore railway accident has reached 238,” the chief secretary of PK Jena told reporters at the Odisha State Office in Bhubaneswar on Saturday.
According to available records, the train derailment, India’s fourth fatal accident, happened around 7pm on Friday near Bahanaga Bazar railway station in Barasore district, some 250km south of Kolkata and some 170km north of Bhubaneswar. Ahan announced: State of emergency. Investigation.
A statement from Indian Railways said an investigation into the train accident by South Eastern Railway Safety Commissioner A.M. Chowdhury will lead. The Railway Safety Board reports to the Department of Civil Aviation.
The cause of the crash is unknown, but sources suggest the possibility of a signal failure.
Several cars on the Howrah-bound Bengaluru-Howrah Express 12864 derailed and fell onto adjacent tracks, officials said.
He said the derailed carriage collided with 12841 Shalimar Chennai Central Coromandel Express and the carriage overturned.
He added: A freight train was also involved in the incident when part of the carriages of the Coromandel Express train bound for Chennai derailed and hit the freight car.
Railway spokesman Amitabh Sharma told PTI Video that the Coromandel Express had derailed for the first time and 10 to 12 cars on the route spanned by the Bangalore-Howrah Express fell over and derailed.
The different versions of the accident could not be immediately reconciled.
Opposition parties have sharply criticized the government as they lamented the death toll in one of India’s worst train accidents.
CPI lawmaker Binoy Viswam tweeted: “The government is only focused on luxury trains. Regular trains and lines are neglected. Losses in Orissa are the result. The railway minister should resign.”
A gas cutter was used to save the bodies from under the derailed wagons. At dawn, firefighters and firefighters were busy recovering bodies at this small East Coast Railway station.
Viewed from a nearby hill, the scene of the accident looked like a powerful tornado had piled up the train cars haphazardly and “angrily.”
Closer to the ground, broken steel and bloodied, dismembered corpses were intertwined, making an odd sight.