India’s Worst Train Disaster: Collision Between Three Trains Leaves 288 Dead and Over 850 Injured

2023-06-03 17:22:04

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The death toll might still rise to 380, according to firefighters and is considered the worst train accident of the 21st century.

3/6/2023

The record already amounts to 288 people dead and more than 850 injured, following registering a collision between three trains in eastern India. A crash that the railway authorities initially explained inaccurately and that took hours to understand how it happened. This is the country’s worst rail disaster in more than 20 years.

This Saturday night the rescue operations ceased, following having inspected all the wagons in search of survivors of the tragedy, which occurred in the state of Odisha.

Odisha Fire Chief Sudhanshu Sarangi said that although the death toll stands at 288, the figure might rise to 380. For his part, Odisha Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena confirmed that “some 850 wounded were sent to hospitals” following the event.

The unfortunate events of the tragedy

In the first hours following the accident there was no clarity regarding what events had led to the tragedy. According to the local newspaper The Times of Indiainitially there was talk of a single train that had derailed and had caused the crash in the Odisha region.

According to the aforementioned newspaper, the sequence of events that led to the accident was as follows.

• At 6:58 am the Coromandel Express train mistakenly changed lanes and entered the circle line, instead of continuing on the main line to Chennai. This was probably, according to the railway authorities, human error, the train was traveling at around 130 kilometers per hour.
• Because it was in the wrong lane, the Coromandel Express train collided with a parked freight train that was on that loop line. After the impact, the Coromandel Express mounted on top of the freight train and caused the derailment of its 22 compartments.

• Until then, there were only two trains involved in the collision, however, three of the Coromandel Express carriages fell onto a parallel railway line and that is when a third train enters the equation.
• The Bengaluru-Howrah train, which was coming on those tracks and in the opposite direction, had already nearly passed the Coromandel Express, but as three of the Coromandel Express’s carriages broke loose, they collided with two of the carriages of the Bengaluru-Howrah, which was traveling in opposite direction.
• It was at the intersection of those five wagons, two from one and three from the other, where most of the victims were found.
• On the Coromandel Express train there were regarding 1,257 passengers, while on the Bengaluru-Howrah there were regarding 1,039 passengers on board.

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