India orders rail station safety checks after 23 are killed in Mumbai

India’s railways minister said yesterday he had empowered station managers “to spend whatever is necessary” as the death toll from a stampede on a rain-slicked station footbridge in Mumbai rose to 23 as another person died from their injuries.

Thirty-eight people were injured in the disaster on Friday morning, which occurred on a pedestrian bridge connecting the city’s Parel and Elphinstone stations.

“To eliminate bureaucracy and delays, I have empowered GMs to spend whatever is necessary on safety,” railways minister Piyush Goyal said in a series of tweets posted during a meeting of senior railway department officials in Mumbai.

Mr Goyal said he had also ordered additional escalators at stations in the city and for CCTV cameras to be installed at stations across the country over the next 15 months.

On Friday, Mr Goyal had ordered audits of Mumbai’s commuter rail network in the wake of the stampede. Officials would be given a week “to identify vulnerable issues”, he said.

The measures highlight the negligence of railway authorities – the poor condition of the Parel-Elphinstone bridge had been pointed out repeatedly by members of the public.

Over the past four years, more than 110 posts on Twitter tagged departments of the country’s railway authorities with concerns about the bridge.

“Pre-rush hour Parel station. The only staircase which people use to exit and enter the station. A major accident is waiting to happen,” the political cartoonist Manjul wrote in February.

His tweet included photos that showed the steel-framed footbridge bursting at the seams with people.

In July last year, Twitter user K K Chandan tweeted a similar photo, tagging prime minister Narendra Modi and the railways minister, Suresh Prabhu. “Is central Mumbai station ‘Parel’ awaiting a stampede?” Mr Chandan wrote.

A stampede did occur on Friday as hundreds waited on the covered footbridge to take shelter from the rain. When four trains arrived at the same time, all on different lines, a rush began. People slipped on the wet surface and were trampled. The panic was compounded by fears that the bridge was about to collapse.

India’s railway authorities carry out safety inspections of footbridges twice a year. The Parel-Elphinstone bridge was determined to be safe this year.

Over the coming week, teams of engineers, railway officials and health and safety inspectors will fan out across Mumbai’s 140 stations to conduct more audits.

The lives lost at Parel and Elphinstone form part of a larger and more dismal record of deaths on the city’s rail network. About 7.5 million passengers ride the trains every day, with carriages often packed to one-and-a-half times their capacity.

On average, 3,000 people lose their lives on Mumbai’s tracks every year. So far this year, 2,166 people have died.