53 killed, over 250 injured in UP train accident

About 53 people were killed (ToI reports) and at least 250 injured Sunday noon when 15 bogies of the Kalka Mail from Howrah jumped tracks this afternoon while travelling at full speed near Malwan station, 120km from Lucknow.
The accident, which took place as the Kalka Mail was nearing the Malwan railway station in Fatehpur district, toppled some of the coaches over two adjoining rail tracks, sealing off the busy route to Howrah from where the train was coming.

Meawhile, a second tragedy struck hundreds of miles away in the evening, when a blast derailed eight coaches of the Guwahati-Puri Express near Rangia, 50km from Guwahati, and injured about 70 passengers.

Several women and children were killed in the 12.20pm Kalka accident, where five AC coaches were among those derailed, and scores of people still lay trapped in two bogies late in the night. Most of the deaths are suspected to have been caused by suffocation in the coaches where the victims lay buried under luggage or fellow passengers.

The 24-bogie Kalka, Bengal's fourth-most important train after Rajdhani, Duronto and Poorva, had left with 1,331 passengers last evening. Its average speed is 63kmph but when the accident happened, it was travelling at 108kmph "which is full speed", North Central Railway general manager H.C. Joshi said.

Officials suspect a track fault or sabotage, but the cause will be known only after the commissioner of railway safety finishes its probe.

The twin accidents come at a time the railways are without a full-fledged minister following the departure of Mamata Banerjee

With Trinamul's junior shipping minister Mukul Roy, who now holds additional charge of the railways, in Calcutta, his fellow minister of state for railways, K.H. Muniappa, rushed to the Kalka accident site.

Discussing the tragedy at her home in Calcutta this evening, Mamata let slip before reporters that her party's junior health minister, Dinesh Trivedi, would bag the railway minister's post in the upcoming cabinet rejig. "Dinesh to ashchhe, or dayitwo hobey eshob ebaar(Dinesh is coming, all this will be his responsibility now)," she said.

Late tonight, police said the rescuers, armed with gas cutters, had not yet been able to enter two bogies. Eyewitnesses said many of the trapped passengers were screaming for help and some were trying to smash the windowpanes and wriggle out.

"Of the 15 derailed bogies, 10 are in a bad shape," a senior official said. While one AC three-tier coach had turned turtle, another had climbed over it. Two other AC coaches that had banged against each other stood almost vertically.

The crowded general compartment behind the engine was the worst hit. The pantry car had overturned, one coach was thrown clear of the train, and several bogies had skidded over to two adjacent tracks.

Railway experts have discounted initial suggestions that the driver had slammed the emergency brakes at high speed, causing the derailment. "The bogies and engines are so designed that they would not topple even at high speed. The mangled remains indicate sabotage or track fault," an official said.

Eyewitnesses said the driver was among the injured. Some of the passengers were seen coming out of the train in a daze, their clothes torn and their bodies covered in wounds.

Villagers were the first to help, pulling out trapped people and giving them water brought from their homes.

Deepali Pradhan, who was travelling from Calcutta to Chandigarh with seven family members, had bandages on a hand and a leg. "Everything happened within seconds," she said. "There was a loud explosion. I was on the top berth and was flung down. My brother-in-law has serious head injuries and my mother and children are hurt."

A train left Howrah around 8.05pm with relatives and friends of the victims. The military has deployed two helicopters to ferry the injured.

"The railways will bear the cost of treatment," Mukul Roy said. He announced the compensations: Rs 5 lakh (for family of each dead), Rs 1 lakh (serious injuries) and Rs 25,000 (minor injuries). Mayavati has announced Rs 1 lakh, Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000, respectively.

Assam track blast

The Puri Express had left Guwahati at 6.45pm and was hit by the blast around 8.20pm at Bhatkuchi near Rangia. Four of the eight derailed coaches overturned.

"Police have found some wires that may have been used to trigger the explosion," a railway police officer said. "No one died."