Train disaster with 238 dead shakes India ‘Enough screaming’ – dispute between Putin warlords escalates

At least 238 people have died in one of the most devastating train accidents in eastern India in recent decades. Some 900 people were injured, authorities in the state of Odisha announced on Saturday morning. As more deaths were suspected under the overturned vehicles and the rescuers had to work under difficult conditions at night, a further increase in the number of victims was to be feared.

The disaster happened on Friday evening around 7 p.m. local time (3 p.m. CEST) in a rural area of ​​Balasore district, over 200 kilometers southwest of Kolkata (formerly: Calcutta). Two passenger trains and a freight train crashed one after the other on two parallel track sections. How exactly, even hours after the accident, was still not clear.

According to media reports, one of the two passenger trains probably derailed first and the other then crashed into the wagons left on the tracks on the parallel route a few meters away. Which of the two trains derailed first and for what reason initially remained unclear – as did whether the freight train was actually parked on another track at the time of the accident and was rammed by one of the derailed passenger trains, as some media described. Others gave different versions of what happened.

By daybreak on Saturday, the magnitude of the disaster became more apparent. About a dozen car wrecks lay on and off the tracks, steel behemoths rose up, some with ripped compartment ceilings and shattered windows. On and off the wagons, dozens of plainclothes helpers and rescuers in orange protective suits desperately tried to rescue injured passengers from under the heavy rubble.

An eyewitness told local television station NDTV that he was shaken from his sleep when his train suddenly derailed – and chaos ensued. “10 to 15 people fell on me,” he told the broadcaster. He himself escaped with injuries to his neck and hands, but then saw corpses and severed body parts everywhere.

“It was a deafening sound, I felt the ground shake under my feet. Our train was tossed around,” a passenger told the Times of India newspaper. Then he looked out the window and saw the derailed wagons with people trapped under them. “It was dark and I heard screaming.” Another man described how distraught relatives later searched for their loved ones in a field of mutilated bodies “The sight was too horrible to describe.”

Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ANI news agency that he had ordered an investigation into the cause of the train crash. He arrived at the scene of the accident on Saturday morning to get an idea of ​​the magnitude of the tragedy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shocked and wrote on Twitter: “In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the grieving families.” Saturday was declared a day of mourning in Odisha.

Shortly after the accident, the Prime Minister’s Office announced compensation for the next of kin of 200,000 rupees (2,267 euros) each. The injured should therefore receive 50,000 rupees each. Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also promised Rs 1 million in compensation to the families of the dead. According to the information, the seriously injured should receive 200,000 rupees each and the slightly injured should receive 50,000 rupees each. (cst/sda/dpa)