Train rams into school van, 13 children dead
UP TRAGEDY Driver ‘had earphones on’, ignored warning at unmanned crossing
GORAKHPUR: At least 13 schoolchildren were killed and eight others injured when a speeding passenger train crashed into a van at an unmanned railway crossing in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district early on Thursday, officials said. The impact of the collision was so strong that the van, carrying 20 students of Divine Mission School, was crushed instantly and many children died on the spot.
The driver, identified as Neyaz Ahmed, 22, allegedly had earphones plugged in while driving and ignored warnings by the ‘gate mitra’ at the crossing, officials said. ‘Gate mitras’ are volunteers posted at unmanned level crossings to alert motorists of train traffic.
A survivor said the driver was busy talking on his mobile phone and didn’t hear children screaming to him that a train was approaching.
The train, 55075 Down, was on its way from Siwan to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh when the accident occurred. Four children injured in the accident were reported to be in a critical state in hospital.
“The accident occurred at 7 am at an unmanned level crossing near Dudhi railway station which falls under the Banaras division. Prima facie the fault appears to be of the van driver who was probably getting late in reaching the school and, therefore, didn’t stop despite warning by our ‘gate mitra’, who repeat-
edly asked him to stop. The train driver too blew the whistle,” said Sanjay Yadav, chief public relations officer, North-Eastern Railway. “All except one child have suffered head injuries and multiple fractures. Three, including the driver, have been kept on ventilator,” said BRD Medical College principal, Dr Ganesh Kumar.
Following the accident, Indian Railways said all unmanned level crossings would be eliminated by 2022. President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal expressed their grief over the accident. The railway minister announced an
ex-gratia payment of of ₹2 lakh each to the kin of the victims, ₹1 lakh to those who were critically injured and ₹50,000 to those with minor injuries.
“I am deeply anguished and pained by the loss of lives of young school children at an unmanned level crossing in Kushinagar. My thoughts are with families of the deceased and I pray for the early recovery of the injured,” Goyal said in a statement, adding that he had ordered a senior-level enquiry.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath rushed to the accident site, about 100km away from Gorakhpur, and said the driver of the van appeared to have been at fault.
“He is said to have had earphones on... all the facts will be known in the inquiry headed by the commissioner of Gorakhpur,” he said after visiting the injured.
The CM faced protests on his visit to Kushinagar. “This is a sad incident. There should be no drama (‘nautanki’) on this,” he told the protesters.
Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani said that in the long term, the solution was the replacement of all unmanned crossings in the railway network with bridges or tunnels for roads.
“We are working on it, but it will take time,” he said.
Lohani said no step the national carrier to avoid accidents can be foolproof in the face of negligence and urged the people to be careful in crossing railway tracks. “We are trying to eliminate UMLCs (unmanned level crossings) by March 31, 2020,” he said.
The officer also said the national transporter has been aggressively doing away with UMLCs —1,565 were eliminated in 2017-18 and the target is to remove 1,600 in 2018-19.
The gradual elimination of unmanned leveI crossings has resulted in a steady decrease in the number of accidents at such locations — from 50 in 2014-2015 to 29 in 2015-2016, to 20 in 20162017, 10 in 2017-2018 and one so far this year.
Across the railway network, 5,792 such crossings still existed as of 31 March, he said.
THOSE WHO WERE ADMITTED TO BRD MEDICAL COLLEGE INCLUDE D NEYAZ AHMED, 22, THE DRIVER OF THE VAN, WHO IS ON VENTILATOR
GORAKHPUR: Lying on a hospital bed with an intravenous tube inserted into his arm and his right leg in a plaster cast, nineyear-old Krishna Verma shivered as he spoke about how a train crashed into the school van carrying him and other children at an unmanned level crossing near Dudhi in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district early on Thursday.
Thirteen of his schoolmates were killed and eight others were injured in the accident.
“The children kept shouting that a train was approaching fast but bhaiyya (driver), who was busy speaking on the mobile phone, didn’t listen to us. Then the train hit our van and I became unconscious. Then I was taken to hospital,” recalled the child, lying on a bed next to his critically injured sister Roshni, who has been kept on a ventilator in the coronary care unit after suffering head injuries and multiple fractures.
Krishna’s father Kailash Verma worried about Roshni, who is in a coma.
“I was at work when the news came in about the accident. I rushed to the spot but didn’t find my son and daughter among the bodies which were lying covered with white cloth. Somebody told me that they were taken to the community health centre. I found them there and brought them here on an ambulance,” he said.
He recalled the accident site, which was strewn with school bags, shoes, books.
Those who were admitted in BRD Medical College included Neyaz Ahmed, 22, the driver of the van, who was also on ventilator, and two other children, Sameer and Talim, both cousin brothers. Doctors said their condition was stable.
Mohammad Hassan, a daily wager who lost his two daughters — Tamanna, 8 and Sajida,10 — in the accident was near the bed on which his only son, Sameer (6) lay hooked to a ventilator.
Shocked by the deaths of his two daughters, Hassan declined to talk to journalists, but his younger brother Azmat said: “The entire village is shocked over the deaths. The kids told us that the driver didn’t stop the van despite the alarm raised by them. With earphones in his ears, he also ignored the warning of the ‘Gate Mitra’.”
A few kilometres from the accident site was a house where family members and locals were mourning the deaths of three children of one family; Amarjeet had lost all his three children — Santosh, 5, Ravi, 7, and Ragini, 8.
“Nobody had ever thought that this would happen to us. Nobody but the government is responsible for this,” he said.