More than 290 dead and 1200 injured in deadly train crash in India

Asia-Pacific, News June 4, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

Rescuers are scrambling to find survivors as the death toll nears 300 in India’s horrific train accident. The crash, involving two passenger trains and one cargo train, occurred in the Balasore district of India’s Odisha state on June 2, 2023.

At least 288 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1,200 injured. The accident occurred at 7 p.m. (local time) when the Howrah Superfast Express, running between Bangalore and Howrah in the West Bengal region, collided with the Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata to Chennai.

So far, the authorities have provided conflicting accounts on which train derailed first, entangling into the other one. Soon after the two passenger trains had collided, a third cargo train coming from Bangalore crashed into the passenger carriages.

India’s Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that a “high-level inquiry” has been ordered to investigate the collision. India’s Inspector General of Operations at the National Disaster Response Force (NDRPF) Narendra Singh Bundela said that at least 17 coaches were derailed and crushed severely.

Drone footage shows the aftermath of deadly train crash in Odisha, India pic.twitter.com/uep6uqEpLe
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“The coaches are very heavy and it is been a difficult task to remove them and identify bodies,” Bundela said. “This is a serious incident and the government has ordered an inquiry,” he added.

Rescue workers and residents rushed to the scene and desperately scrambled to find survivors in the wreckage of three trains. The death toll is expected to rise as many people are still trapped under upturned carriages.

More than 1000 people have been reported seriously injured in India’s deadliest train accident in more than a decade. “We are not very hopeful of rescuing anyone alive,” Odisha’s Fire Services Chief, Sudhanshu Sarangi, told local news reporters from the site of the accident.

*^{Rescue teams at the site of the train crash in Balasore district in Odisha, India. (Image Credit: AP)}*

More than 200 ambulances and several fire service units were called to the crash scene while additional 100 doctors were mobilized to the hospitals near the accident. Hundreds of people gathered outside the local hospitals to donate blood for the injured passengers.

India’s aging railway infrastructure

Trains in India serve more than 13 million passengers every day through a vast network of railway lines that are spread all over the country. Some of India’s railway infrastructure was laid down during the British rule of the Subcontinent and it has been in use since then without substantial upgradation. The Indian government has spent millions in recent years to upgrade the country’s decades-old railway infrastructure in major cities, however, years of neglect have caused tracks to deteriorate.

In 2001 alone, more than 16,000 people were killed in nearly 18,000 major and minor train accidents across India. Most of India’s train accidents occur due to bad safety measures on the train tracks and poor infrastructure.

The death toll from the recent train crash has already surpassed that of another infamous train accident that occurred in 2016. More than 140 people were killed after a passenger train was derailed in the northern Uttar Pradesh state of India.