2023-06-04 08:35:16
India’s Railways Minister announced on Sunday that the cause and those responsible for India’s worst train disaster in decades had been identified.
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“We have identified the cause of the accident and the people responsible for it,” Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told ANI news agency on Sunday. He added that it was “not appropriate” to release further details before the final investigation report.
The provisional toll of the collision between three trains which occurred Friday near Balasore, in the state of Odisha, in the east of the country, reports at least 288 dead.
According to the Minister, “the change which occurred during the electronic interlocking is at the origin of the accident”, in reference to a complex set of signals managing traffic on the tracks to prevent the collision of trains.
“The culprit and the manner in which the accident occurred will be discovered following a proper investigation,” he added.
Confusion reigns at this stage, but the daily Times of Indiaciting the preliminary investigation report, said “human error” may have caused the collision between three trains, one of the worst train disasters in the country’s history.
The Coromandel Express, linking Calcutta to Madras, was given the green light on Friday to run on the main track, but was rerouted due to human error on a track where there was already a freight train, according to the newspaper.
The passenger train then struck the freight convoy at a speed of around 130 km/h. Three carriages then fell onto the adjacent track, hitting the rear of an express train which was operating between Bangalore and Calcutta. It was this collision that caused the most damage, adds the Timesciting the preliminary report.
Odisha State Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena confirmed that around 900 injured people had been taken to hospital.
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