‘SIGNAL FAULT’ LED TO TRAINS HORROR
AN electronic signalling error caused the train crash in India which killed 275 people and injured 1,175 more, it has been revealed.
The computer glitch sent one of the trains involved on to the wrong track, where it crashed with a goods train.
Ten to 12 coaches of the passenger train derailed and debris on the tracks then caused three coaches of another passenger train coming from the opposite direction to derail.
After the signalling error was revealed, India’s railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “Who has done it and what is the reason will come out during an investigation.”
Local hospitals were described as “like war zones” due to the number of casualties. Of the 1,175 injured people taken to hospital, 793 have been discharged.
More than 100 people were critically injured. The authorities were yesterday still trying to clear the mangled wreckage of the trains, which derailed around Balasore station in the eastern state of Odisha.
Preliminary investigations revealed that a green “go” signal was given to the passenger train to move on to the main track line, but that was later taken off.
The train went on to another line, known as the “loop line”, and crashed into the goods train parked there.
Families of the victims of India’s worst rail disaster in two decades are struggling to reach the town where the disaster happened.
The delays have meant that many bodies remain unidentified and unclaimed. Initially, the bodies were kept
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at a business park on top of large ice blocks and covered with plastic sheets, but the ice melted fast in searing 38C temperatures.
Relatives who managed to get to the business park had to endure the trauma of looking at photographs of the faces of victims.
Then, if they saw any potential resemblance to a loved one, they were taken to have a closer look.
Jaya Verma Sinha, from India’s Railway Board, said there was “no issue with the electronic interlocking system” and said investigations indicated “some kind of a signalling interference”.
She said: “Whether it was manual, whether it was incidental, whether it was weather related, whether it was because of wear and tear related, whether it was a maintenance failure, all that will come out after the inquiry.”
The accident happened at a time when the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is focusing on the modernisation of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populated country with 1.42 billion people.
Despite efforts to improve rail safety, hundreds of accidents happen every year on a 62,000-mile rail network that carries 25 million passengers a day.
Who has done it and what is the reason will come out during the investigation
ASHWINI VAISHNAW india’s railways minister on cause of disaster