The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Signaling system blamed for deadly crash
The national champs, with all eyes on them as a new season starts, need to set an example.
BALASORE, INDIA — The derailment in eastern India that killed 275 people and injured hundreds was caused by an error in the electronic signaling system that led a train to wrongly change tracks and crash into a freight train, officials said Sunday.
Authorities worked to clear the mangled wreckage of the two passenger trains that derailed Friday night in Balasore district in Odisha state in one of the country’s deadliest rail disasters in decades.
An Odisha government statement revised the death toll to 275 after a top state officer put the number at over 300 on Sunday morning. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
What happened
Jaya Verma Sinha, a senior railway official, said the preliminary investigations revealed that a signal was given to the high-speed Coromandel Express to run on the main track line, but the signal later changed, and the train instead entered an adjacent loop line where it rammed into a freight loaded with iron ore.
The collision flipped Coromandel Express’s coaches onto another track, causing the incoming Yesvantpur-howrah Express from the opposite side also to derail, she said.
The passenger trains, carrying 2,296 people, were not overspeeding, she said. Trains that carry goods are often parked on an adjacent loop line so the main line is clear for a passing train.
Verma said the root cause of the crash was related to an error in the electronic signaling system. She said a detailed investigation will reveal whether the error was human or technical.
About the electronic system
The electronic interlocking system is a safety mechanism designed to prevent conflicting movements between trains. It also monitors the status of signals that tell drivers how close they are to a next train, how fast they can go and the presence of stationary trains on the track.
“The system is 99.9% error
free. But 0.1% chances are always there for an error,” Verma said. To a question whether the crash could be a case of sabotage, she said “nothing is ruled out.”
On Sunday, a few shattered carriages, mangled and overturned, were the only remnants of the tragedy. Railway workers toiled under the sun’s glare to lay down blocks of cement to fix the broken tracks. A crew with excavators
was removing mud and the debris to clear the crash site.
At one of the hospitals nearly 9 miles from the site, survivors spoke of the horror of the moment of the crash.
What the witnesses said
Pantry worker Inder Mahato could not remember the exact sequence of events, but said he heard a loud bang when the
Coromandel Express crashed into the freight. The impact caused Mahato, who was in the bathroom, to briefly lose consciousness.
Moments later when he opened his eyes, he saw through the door that was forced open people writhing in pain, many of them already dead. Others were frantically trying to get out from the twisted wreckage of his rail car.
For hours, Mahato, 37, remained stuck in the train’s bathroom, before rescuers scaled up the wreckage and pulled him out.
“God saved me,” he said, lying on the hospital bed while recuperating from a hairline fracture in his sternum. “I am very lucky I am alive.”
Mahato’s friends weren’t so lucky. Four of them died in the crash, he said.
Meanwhile, many desperate relatives were struggling to identify the bodies of their loved ones because of the gruesomeness of the injuries. Few others were searching hospitals to check whether their relatives were alive.
In the same hospital where Mahato was recovering from his injuries, Bulti Khatun roamed outside the premises in a dazed state, holding an identity card of her husband who was onboard the Coromandel Express and traveling to southern Chennai city.
Khatun said she visited the morgue and other hospitals to look for him, but was unable to find him. “I am so helpless,” she said, sobbing.
Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday evening and efforts continued overnight with heavy cranes being used to remove an engine that settled on top of a rail car. No bodies were found in the engine and the work was completed on Sunday morning, said Sudhanshu Sarangi, director-general of fire and emergency services in Odisha.
The crash occurred at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on the modernization of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion people. Despite government efforts to improve safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world.
The pressures on a top-flight college program from its fan base are primarily about winning. For four decades, the University of Georgia Bulldogs couldn’t quite reach the mountaintop. But now they have for two years in a row. So the bar is set high, and anything short of a trifecta will be disappointing in Dawg Nation.
The impetus of this now spoiled-withtreasure fan base should shift, at least for now, to the terrible trend its stars are practicing behind the wheel.
Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart, who famously does not rest on the laurels of success and spits hot coals when his team underperforms, faced questions about a recent string of driving violations on his team. Smart is also famously coy and short with the media, saving his energies for instructing his army of footballers.
I recently wrote in depth about Jalen Carter’s adjacency to the tragic double-fatal crash in Athens on the night of the team’s championship parade. Carter paid very little for his bad behavior.
Since that horrible night, no fewer than four Georgia football players have been arrested for infractions behind the wheel, the AJC’S Chip Towers reports. The lessons in the UGA football program have not yet been learned.
Towers also reports that the UGA Athletic Association’s handbook has spelled out punishments for driving under the influence, but nothing specific about traffic violations.
As the fatal January crash reminded people, dangerous driving is just as lethal as DUI. UGA should treat it the same way.
Smart acknowledged that the recently arrested players and their families are embarrassed. And he said that people of that age simply have to learn their lessons.
This all is true, but if Smart and UGA want to send a resounding message, they will take away the thing that matters the most to these young men: football.
Carter’s infractions in January came when he was between jobs, per se. UGA could not suspend a player who was leaving the program, and he was not yet employed by an NFL team. His legal troubles ended up costing him nothing in the first round of the NFL draft.
But the Dawgs have a chance to truly teach lessons to the four players apprehended since then. The season hasn’t started. The players are still on the team.
Smart said they are handling the discipline internally. That can mean anything, and whatever measures those might be could prove effective.
If Smart really wants to curb this reckless driving — something that is rampant amongst younger adult drivers — inspirational speakers, being chewed out or extra wind sprints might not fully do the trick.
These errant drivers need to lose playing time.
NASCAR, where risky driving is the business model, recently has had to throw the book at drivers who have crossed the line of retaliation on the track. The governing body suspended Bubba Wallace last fall for intentionally hooking and crashing Kyle Larson. They took points away from and fined driver Denny Hamlin in March after he admitted he wrecked Ross Chastain on purpose on the last lap of a race. And just this past week they suspended their most popular driver, Dawsonville’s Chase Elliott, for hooking and wrecking Hamlin during the Coca-cola 600.
In two of these three instances,
NASCAR took away what is most valuable to a driver: racing. They can take away all the money and championship points they want, but no driver wants to see their car circling the track with someone else at the helm. Wallace’s suspension wasn’t at the top of Elliott’s mind when he made his decision in Monday’s race. However, maybe both suspensions will help stop the next blatant retaliation.
UGA has precedence in this department: Soon before his new contract began, AD Damon Evans got arrested for a DUI in Buckhead with his mistress as a passenger. He lost his job.
I got the majority of my speeding tickets when I was college-aged. Smart acknowledged his concern with men in this age bracket and their decision-making. Recent stats indicate that males aged 21 to 25 are the mostly likely demographic to get in a crash in the U.S. The human brain simply doesn’t assess risk below the age of 25 as it does at later ages.
College boosters have plenty of say in the direction of football programs. UGA donors and UGA brass need to focus more on making sure the drivers within the Dawgs football program stay between the ditches and nearer the speed limit. This means stomaching the idea of a star player standing on the sideline, regardless of how that affects the total in the wins column.
This team’s roster is deep and the football program will win even bigger in the long run if it can turn the tide on its culture of bad driving. The time has arrived to send that message before the next arrest — or worse.