Apocalypse India, three trains collide, almost 300 dead – time.news

2023-06-03 22:10:12

Of Monica Ricci Sargentini

More than 900 are injured. 8 billion people travel in the country a year but the network is old and in bad condition. Prime Minister Modi: “Whoever made a mistake will pay”.

The crumpled carriages lie on top of each other in an inextricable tangle. On the ground, near the tracks, dozens of bodies are lying, covered with white sheets, while those who are alive work frantically to free the hundreds of trapped people in the train cars under the twisted metal and broken glass. It is the apocalyptic scene that was faced by those who rushed to the small station of Bahanaga Bazar, near Balasore in the eastern part of the state of Orissa, India, on Friday evening, where the the worst accident in the last 24 years: at least 288 dead and more than 900 injured, many of them very seriously. According to an initial reconstruction around seven in the evening the Coromandel Express, a high-speed passenger train departing from Calcutta with 1,257 passengers, entered a siding and crashed into a freight train which was stationary. The impact was very strong. Twenty-one carriages derailed and three fell onto another track where, simultaneously, the Bengaluru-Howrah Express, carrying 1,039 passengers, was passing in the opposite direction.

Ironically yesterday Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was supposed to inaugurate the high-speed train that will connect Goa and Mumbai and which is equipped with a collision avoidance system. After the accident, the event was canceled and he went to the scene of the tragedy. “We cannot bring people who have died back to life but the government is standing by the families of the victims in this moment of tragedy. Those who are guilty will pay, and hard, I promise.”he assured.

India, a country of 1.42 billion people, the most populous in the world, has one of the most extensive and complicated railways, built during the British colonial era: more than 64,000 km) of track, 14,000 passenger trains and 8,000 stations. Decades of mismanagement and neglect they have weakened the vast railway system that runs from the Himalayas in the north to the beaches in the south and carries nearly 22 million passengers every day, eight billion a year. According to Comptroller and Auditor General, According to the national inspection body, Indian Railways recorded 2,017 accidents from 2017 to 2021, 69% of which were due to derailments. It must be said that Modi, in power for nine years, has invested tens of billions of dollars to replace old rails, introduce new trains and remove thousands of automatic level crossings. A technological system that avoids train collisions should, in the future, reduce the risks of new tragedies but it is not yet operational nationwide.

Yesterday, while condolence messages continued to arrive from abroad, the relatives of the victims struggled to identify their loved ones among the hundreds of bodies lined up on the floor of a school. A sad ritual that went on for hours in silence broken only by tears.

June 3, 2023 (change June 3, 2023 | 22:09)

© Time.News