NEW DELHI, India: Sabotaged tracks may have derailed a speeding express train in central India, Killing at least 70 passengers and injuring some 260 occupants in 12 crowded cars, a Cabinet Minister said Wednesday.

Details of the train crash in Uttar Pradesh state surfaced amid Reports the state suffered further tragedy with two bus crashed that left 61 people dead and 90 injured.

‘Three relief trains rolled into the capital early Wednesday bearing more than 500 survivors of the Tuesday train wreck along a remote stretch of track near Lalitpur, 280 miles south of New Delhi in Uttar Pradesh.

Survivors said the locomotive and eight lead compartments were undamaged, but that 12 carriages were hurled off the tracks, scattering bodies and baggage across a dry riverbed and farmland.

Railway Minister Madhavrao Scindia said the cause of the disaster was undetermined but did not “rule out any possibility including sabotage,” as several pins holding down rails were found “out of place.”

Officials reported: three more bodies had been recovered from the wreckage bringing the death toll to 70 but they would not estimate how many other corpses might remain inside wreckage of the train that had been heading to Delhi from southern Karnataka state.

Authorities said about 260 people were injured, at least 20 seriously, with 137 hospitalized.

Survivors predicted the death toll would reach 100. They estimated some 1,500 people were abroad the 21carriage train, and the most heavily damaged cars were crowded second class coaches.

They said the locomotive and the first eight cars passed over a small bridge spanning the riverbed but the ninth and 10th carriages, each with more than 70 occupants derailed and tumbled some 30 feet to the ground.

The 11th car a pantry wagon bearing stewards and cooks, slammed into a concrete wall at the mouth of the bridge and then was hit by two trailing passenger cars.

”Only a few, very few inside the pantry car could have survived,” said Nalini Shastri a student. “The carriage was totally smashed.”

Many occupants thought the disaster occurred because the driver was three hours behind schedule and did not slow down for the bridge.

Everything happened simultaneously,” said S.P. Govindappa who emerged unhurt from a rear car. “There was a big sound, a violent shake and the train screeched to a halt. Everything scattered around.”

Scores of people gathered at New Delhi station muttering prayers and berating officials for the lack of information about friends and relatives.

“My husband would have definitely informed me if all was well,” said a weeping middle aged woman scanning a preliminary causality list. “I fear the worst.”

India’s worst rail accident occurred in eastern Bihar state June 6, 1981, when a train plunged into a river, killing more than 360 people.

The Press Trust of India, meanwhile quoted officials saying 44 people died when a crowded privately owned passenger bus veered off a road Tuesday and plunged into the Bhagirathi River near Ghaasu village, 120 miles north of New Delhi in northern Uttar Pradesh. It said 84 people were injured.

In the same area, another private bus skidded off the road and fell into a drainage ditch, killing 17 passengers and injuring six others near the town of Dehra Dun, the agency said.

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 28, 1989