Indian train crash today: ‘No more bodies found’ after Odisha rail accident leaves hundreds dead

A signal error is thought to be the cause of a train crash that has killed at least 288 people in India, it has been reported.

The passenger Coromandel Express rammed into a goods train in Balasore city in Odisha state on Friday causing between 10 and 12 carriages to derail. A third train was also involved in the aftermath.

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Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a message expressing his deepest condolences after the tragedy in India.

He tweeted: “On behalf of myself and the people of Ukraine, I express my deepest condolences to Prime Minister @narendramodi and all relatives and friends of those killed in the train accident in the state of Odisha.

“We share the pain of your loss. We wish a speedy recovery for all those injured.”

A cartoon published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel about India overtaking China as the world’s most populous country has angered Indians who have dubbed it “racist”.

Earlier this month, the UN had estimated that India will overtake China to become the world’s most populous country by the middle of the year.

On Monday, the multilateral agency said India’s population will eclipse an ageing China by the end of this month.

Here are details of some of the deadliest rail accidents in recent decades in India, where a railway official said at least 288 people were killed in a train crash in eastern state of Odisha on Friday.

June 1981: At least 800 people are killed when seven rear coaches of an overcrowded passenger train are blown off the track and fall into a river during a cyclone.

July 1988: An express train leaves the rails and plunges into a monsoon-swollen lake near Quilon in southern India, killing at least 106 people.

August 1995 – At least 350 people are killed when two trains collide 200 km (125 miles) from Delhi.

August 1999 – Two trains collide near Calcutta, leading to the deaths of at least 285 people.

October 2005: Several coaches of a passenger train derail in southern Andhra Pradesh state, near Velugonda. At least 77 people are killed.

July 2011: Around 70 people are killed and over 300 injured when a mail train derails in Fatehpur.

November 2016: Some 146 people are killed and more than 200 injured when an express train derails in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

January 2017: At least 41 people are killed after several coaches of a passenger train go off the rails in southern Andhra Pradesh state.

October 2018: A commuter train runs through a crowd gathered on the tracks for a festival in northern India‘s Amritsar city, killing at least 59 people and injuring 57.

Indian Railways maintains that safety has always been a key focus, and points to its low accident rate over the years.

“This question (on safety) is arising because there has been one incident now. But if you see the data, you will see that there have been no major accidents for years,” a railways ministry spokesperson said.

The number of accidents per million train kilometres, a gauge of safety, had fallen to 0.03 in fiscal 2021-22 from 0.10 in 2013-14, the spokesperson said.

A 1-trillion-rupee, five-year safety fund created in 2017-18 has been extended for another five years from 2022-23, with a further 450 billion rupees of funding, after the first plan led to an “overall improvement in safety indicators”, he added.

“Some malfunction has happened and that the inquiry will reveal,” he said, referring to Friday’s crash. “We will find out why it happened and how it happened.”

Srinand Jha, an independent transport expert and author at the International Railway Journal, said the railways have been working on safety mechanisms such as anti-collision devices and emergency warning systems but have been slow to install them across the network.

“They will always tell you that accidents are at a very manageable level because they talk about them in terms of percentages,” Jha said, adding that in recent years the focus has been more on new trains and modern stations and not as much on tracks, signalling systems and asset management.

“This accident brings out the need to focus more on these aspects,” he said.

The accident occurred at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on the modernisation of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion.

Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India‘s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world.

Modi flew to the crash site and spent half an hour examining the relief effort and talking to rescue officials. He was seen giving instructions on the phone to officials in New Delhi.

He later visited a hospital where he walked around inquiring from doctors about the treatment being given to the injured, and spoke to some of them, moving from bed to bed in a ward.

Modi told reporters that it was a sad moment and he was feeling the pain of those who have suffered in the accident. He said the government would do its utmost to help them and strictly punish those found responsible.

Modi on Saturday was supposed to inaugurate a high-speed train connecting Goa and Mumbai that is equipped with a collision avoidance system. The event was canceled after Friday’s accident. The trains that derailed did not have that system.

At least 288 people have been killed in a train accident in eastern India, a railway official has said.

Rescuers found no more survivors in the overturned and mangled wreckage of two passenger trains that derailed in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades, officials said Saturday.

Chaotic scenes erupted after the derailment on Friday night about 220 kilometers (137 miles) southwest of Kolkata, as rescuers climbed atop the wrecked trains to break open doors and windows using cutting torches.

The death toll rose steadily throughout the night. Scores of bodies, covered by white sheets, lay on the ground near the tracks while locals and rescuers raced to free the hundreds of people trapped in the rail cars under the twisted metal and broken glass.

Army soldiers and air force helicopters joined the effort.

An Associated Press photographer saw bodies still entangled in a badly mangled coach, as rescuers struggled to retrieve them working under the oppressive heat with temperatures reaching up to 35 degree Celsius (96 degrees Fahrenheit).

“By 10 p.m. (on Friday) we were able to rescue the survivors. After that it was about picking up dead bodies,” Sudhanshu Sarangi, director of Odisha state’s fire and emergency department, told The Associated Press.

“This is very, very tragic. I have never seen anything like this in my career.”

At least 280 bodies were recovered overnight and into Saturday morning, he said. About 900 people were injured and the cause was under investigation.