Special trains run in sections of India
Passengers must have app for contact tracing
NEW DELHI — India reopened parts of its huge rail network on Tuesday, running a limited number of trains as it looks at easing a nearly seven-week lockdown despite a continuing rise in coronavirus infections.
Special trains departed from several large cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai. Passengers were allowed to enter the stations only if they were asymptomatic and cleared thermal screening. They are required to maintain social distancing on board and are given hand sanitizers when they enter and leave.
Indian Railways also is requiring that passengers download a government-run contact tracing smartphone app before boarding the train. Critics say the Aarogya Setu app endangers civil liberties in how it uses location services and centralizes data collection.
Thousands of passengers waited in long, serpentine queues outside New Delhi’s railway station, the hub of India’s rail network. Police in riot gear tried to maintain social distancing and citizen volunteers offered water bottles to passengers who lugged heavy bags. Station workers sanitized the area with disinfectants.
“I don’t care about what happens next. At least I will be with my family,” said Ram Babu Kumar Singh, who works as an air conditioning mechanic in New Delhi but whose home is in eastern Bihar state. “If I stay here for long, I will die.”
Singh was among many who expressed relief over the resumption of train travel, which was suspended in late March along with road and air services as part of the nationwide lockdown. Its strictness helped keep confirmed coronavirus infections relatively low. But in recent days, as the lockdown has eased and some businesses have resumed, infections and deaths have shot up.
The decision to open select train lines was made Sunday as India considers easing the strict lockdown of its 1.3 billion people that has left millions stranded in cities. The announcement led to a mad rush for online bookings on Monday as more than 45,000 people purchased train tickets within hours of the start of sales, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
India has confirmed 70,756 cases of coronavirus, including 2,293 deaths, but experts believe its outbreak is far greater. Almost one-fifth of India’s confirmed infections involve people from the densely populated cities of Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and
Ahmedabad, which also are major centers of economic activity.
In other developments:
Israeli police arrested over 300 people Tuesday as officers attempted to control crowds that had assembled at a religious site in northern Israel in violation of coronavirus restrictions.
Local media reported that authorities are preparing to conduct coronavirus tests on all 11 million residents of the central Chinese city of Wuhan following a slight increase in cases.
The future of Id-check free travel across 26 European countries is at risk if governments do not ease soon the emergency border restrictions they introduced to halt the spread of the coronavirus, European Union lawmakers and officials warned Tuesday.
For the first time, COVID-19 has been confirmed in a crowded civilian protection camp in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Singaporeans were able to get a haircut at the barber or pop in to their favorite bakery Tuesday as the government loosened restrictions three weeks before a partial lockdown ends. Despite an upsurge in cases due to an outbreak among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories, the government said transmission in the community has dropped and plans a phased reopening of the economy.