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Negligence blamed for Indian train crash
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-15 20:27
MUKHERIYAN, India - Authorities said that negligence caused a head-on
collision between two packed trains that killed 38 people in northern India, as
police searched for two railway officials blamed for the tragedy.
Newspapers, however, said antiquated equipment was at fault. "Killing
laxity," The Hindustan Times splashed on its front page.
The Indian Express said "the head-on collision ... was waiting to
happen," adding that it surveyed the system and "found a crumbling
communications network and virtually non-existent infrastructure."
The accident happened Tuesday when an apparent signalling blunder between
separate stations allowed the trains on to a single track. They collided in
Punjab state 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of Amritsar.
"The death toll stands at 38. Fifty-two people have been injured out of
whom 11 have been sent home. The rest are recovering in five hospitals,"
assistant inspector general of railways S.S. Bhullar told AFP at the crash site.
Two were in critical condition, police said.
In a grim reminder of the frequent accidents on one of the world's
biggest railway networks, four people including a child died Wednesday and 10
were hurt when a train collided with a van at a railway crossing near
Munidyampakkam in southern Tamil Nadu state.
Parliament was plunged into uproar with opposition MPs demanding the
resignation of Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav over the accident, bellowing,
"Shame, shame!"
The minister, who had called the accident "brutal murder" and blamed
negligent officials, was not in the house at the time.
Newspapers attacked the government over Tuesday's collision, the latest
in a long list of fatal accidents involving the railway, for failing to upgrade
communications and safety equipment.
They said the normal instrument signal system between the two train
stations broke down 24 hours before the accident and railway officials were
giving clearance verbally to allow train drivers to proceed.
Successive governments have faced criticism for not spending enough to
upgrade crumbling infrastructure on the railways, the main form of long-distance
transport in India that carries 13 million people daily.
The system that sprawls 108,700 kilometers (66,800 miles) across the
nation of over one billion people records about 300 accidents every year, some
of which have resulted in hundreds of deaths.
The accident "took place because of the negligence of the station
masters. Normally they let one train go and the other one stops," said Bhullar.
"The two station masters are being investigated for negligence and
culpable homicide. We raided their homes but they have absconded," he said. "We
are searching for them."
But Om Prakash, 54, a railway worker who suffered bad cuts and bruises in
the accident, said authorities were blaming the station officials unfairly.
"It's the government's fault. Track workers have to work over 12 hours
when they're only supposed to work eight. You can't hold them responsible when
they work like this," he said from his hospital bed at Mukheriyan, the nearest
large town to the crash site.
Police were questioning witnesses about the smash, which happened on a line
running through Mansar village in rural Punjab.
One track worker in Mansar, Gurbachan Singh, said they tried desperately to
flag down the trains when they saw them speeding toward each other. "The local
train tried to stop, it braked twice, but the express train kept going."
By Wednesday cranes had cleared the track, allowing trains to pass. Seven
wagons lay nearby tilting at crazy angles, a mess of tangled metal.
Passenger Narayan Mahapatra, 32, a bakery worker recovering in hospital from
a head injury, said he heard "a loud explosion. I thought it was a bomb. The
coach was filled with choking black smoke ... then I lost consciousness."
The express train left Jammu in Kashmir Tuesday bound for the western city of
Ahmedabad. On board were some Hindu pilgrims returning from a shrine in the
Himalayas. The local train was travelling between Jalandhar and Pathankot.
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