CUTTACK/BENGALURU: One person was killed and three others injured as an express train derailed in Odisha’s Cuttack district on Sunday, officials said.
Eleven coaches of the SMVT Bengaluru-Kamakhya AC Express derailed at Nirgundi near Manguli at 11.54 am, Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of the East Coast Railways Ashok Kumar Mishra said.
The deceased was identified as 22-year-old Suvankar Roy of Alipurdwar in West Bengal, railways said, adding that the youth jumped from the train after derailment and died.
However, the railway authorities were waiting for the postmortem report to ascertain the exact cause of the death, an official said.
The East Coast Railways in a statement said that one female passenger suffered grievous injury and two other male passengers are being treated for simple injury.
Cuttack District Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde, who oversaw the rescue operation, had earlier said that one person died and seven others were injured in the accident, but the railways claimed the number of injured persons was three.
“The four other persons shifted to hospital, did not get injuries due to derailment. Rather, these people were patients returning home after treatment in Bengaluru. They were also rescued from the derailed bogies and taken to hospital,” a senior official claimed while stating that the number of injured persons was three and not seven.
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi expressed concern over the accident, and said, “Authorities are on-site, ensuring assistance and restoring normalcy at the earliest. Helplines activated for support.”
A special train has started its journey to Kamakhya with the stranded passengers from the accident site.
Meanwhile, the Railways has announced ex-gratia for the deceased passenger and injured persons. “Ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh has been announced for the next of kin of the deceased. Similarly, Rs 2.5 lakh for grievous and Rs 50,000 for simple injuries,” an official statement said.
However, over a dozen passengers of the derailed train became ill and were treated at the temporary health camp near the derailment site.
Some passengers were given normal saline to protect them from dehydration and electrolyte imbalance after any trauma, a doctor treating them said, adding that they were later discharged after first aid.
The Cuttack Collector said some passengers became ill as they suddenly came out of the air-conditioned bogies and were exposed to gruelling heat in the area. The passengers were supplied with sufficient drinking water, he said, adding that all the injured persons were admitted to the state-run SCB Medical College and Hospital (SCB MCH) in Cuttack.
SCB MCH’s Administrative Officer Subhas Chandra Ray said, “One person died. Among the seven injured, three are men and four women.”
Director General of Fire Service Sudhansu Sarangi said the fire service personnel along with NDRF and ODRAF carried out rescue operation immediately and it was completed within hours.
The Railways said that the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), South Eastern Circle, Kolkata under the Ministry of Civil Aviation Brijesh Mishra will inspect the derailment site near Cuttack on Sunday night.
It said that any member of the public having knowledge relating to the derailment and matter connected therewith and desiring to give evidence may do so at the office of the DRM Khurda Road Division, Jatni (Khurda Road) on April 1 and 2.
The public may write to the Commissioner of Railway Safety, South Eastern Circle, 14, Strand Road, 12th Floor, Koilaghat, Kolkata-700001 on the matter.
The train was heading to Kamakhya station in Assam’s Guwahati from Bengaluru and the accident happened on the down line of the Howrah-Chennai route, affecting train services, officials said.
While mail express trains are running in the Howrah-Visakhapatnam up line, as many as 21 down line trains were diverted via Barang-Naraj-Kapilas Road instead of the usual Barang-Cuttack-Nergundi route.
Efforts are being made to clear the accident site at the earliest, and the up line has already been made operational, they said.
One of the woman passengers of a derailed coach said: “I was sleeping on the upper berth and fell down due to derailment… All the belongings kept on the upper berths also fell down.”
She said some of the elderly persons, children and patients travelling in the train were frightened and screamed after the derailment.
The residents of the nearby Manguli village were the first to reach the derailment site.
“Many people were crying for water when we reached the place. They had lost water bottles in the derailment. We rescued some elderly persons before the arrival of fire service personnel,” said Rama Sahoo, a local.
OPCC president Bhakta Charan Das visited the accident site and said, “Train accidents are happening frequently due to the extreme negligence” of the railway authorities. There is a need to take proper steps to prevent train accidents, he said.
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