India train crash linked to signal system failure

The cause of India’s deadliest train disaster in decades was linked to the signal system, the railway minister said Sunday, as families scoured hospitals and morgues for missing relatives and deaths were expected to top 288.

Mounds of debris were piled high at the site of Friday night’s crash near Balasore, in the eastern state of Odisha, as workers repairing the tracks cleared the smashed carriages and blood-stained wreckage where hundreds were also injured, reports AFP.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by the number of casualties. The injured included two Bangladeshis, Andalib Elias, deputy high commissioner at the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata, said, reports UNB.

“We do not have any information about any deceased Bangladeshis; what we know so far is two Bangladeshi injured passengers are currently undergoing treatment in two hospitals in Odisha,” he said in a video message.

“Also, families of four train passengers contacted us from Bangladesh and said they (the four Bangladeshis) are still missing. We are trying to trace them and already a team from the Kolkata deputy high commission went to the accident site this morning. Hopefully after reaching there, they will coordinate with the injured Bangladeshis there,” he added.

“We have identified the cause of the accident and the people responsible for it,” India’s Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told news agency ANI. He said it was “not appropriate” to give details before a final investigation report.

There was confusion about the exact sequence of events but reports cited railway officials saying a signalling error had sent the Coromandal Express running south from Kolkata to Chennai onto a side track.

It slammed into a freight train and the wreckage derailed an express running north from India’s tech hub Bengaluru to Kolkata that was also passing the site.

Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of Odisha Fire Services, said the death toll stood at 288 but was expected to rise further, potentially approaching 380.Odisha’s chief secretary Pradeep Jena confirmed that about 900 injured people had been hospitalised.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site and injured passengers in hospital on Saturday and said “no one responsible” would be spared.

Condolences have poured in from around the world, including from Pope Francis, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron.