(Courtesy: San Francisco Chronicle) New DelhizAt least 400 passengers died and 400 others were injured last ‘week when a passenger train rammed ‘nether train that had stopped unexpectedly after hitting a cow, news agencies reported.
Troops were pressed into rescue work at Firozabad, 125 miles south east of the Indian capital. Firozabad is a Mogul artisan town known for its glass bangles.
Nearly 20 hours after the collision, rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the twisted debris and said that they expect the death toll to rise further, Cranes were being used to lift the smashed cars, which had telescoped into each other.
The accident outside Firozabad railway station in northern India occurred when a signalman sent the Puroshoitam Express onto a track without realizing that the Kalindi Express had stopped ahead, official reports said, quoting unnamed railroad officials. The brakes of the first train had been damaged in the collision with the cow, and authorities said it was unable to proceed. The three rear cars of the Kalindi Express and the engine and first two cars of the other train crumpled like balls of paper Railway officials said most of the 2,200 passengers aboard the two trains were sleeping. when the collision occurred. Both trains were bound for New Delhi. ‘The injured were admitted to hospitals in Firozabad and in the nearby towns of Tundla and Agr.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao expressed sorrow over the deaths and directed a senior government minister to supervise rescue operations.
Prior to the accident, 100 people had been killed this year in six separate railroad accidents in India, The state run railways are an important form of transport across the vast reaches of the Indian subcontinent, and crashes involving the aged equipment are fairly common, Every day, hundreds. Of thousands of people crowd the7,000 trains that crisscross this sprawling nation, Faresare cheap. To travel from Delhi to Bombay by a second class air conditioned coach on one of India’s fastest trains costs about $45. That is a distance of about 600 miles, which is covered in 17 hours. To fly between the two cities Costs about $90 and takes two hours. Rao has proposed to extend the railways to the strife torn border state of Jammu and Kashmir within the next few years.
The crash was one of the worst train accidents in the Indian railroad’s 142 year history. In 1981, at least 270 people were killed when a train plunged into a river.
In 198,107 people were killed when the Island Express fell into Ashtamudi Lake in the southern state of Kerala.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 25, 1995
