India’s train death toll rises to more than 200 in world’s deadliest train disaster in 20 years

By James On Jun 2, 2023

At least 207 people have been killed and 900 injured, making it the world’s deadliest train crash in two decades as rescuers battle to save survivors trapped under rubble.

Two passenger trains collided in Balasore, Odisha, eastern India on Friday, with rescuers frantically searching for others trapped under the derailed wagons.

Footage of the tragic scene showed rescuers frantically scrambling up the mutilated wreckage in an attempt to find survivors.

The death toll is expected to rise, Chief Secretary of State Pradeep Jena said in a tweet. Sudhanshu Sarangi, the director general of Odisha fire service, added that 207 bodies have been recovered so far.

Mr Sarangi added: ‘A very sad incident and the prognosis is not good’.

Rescue workers at the scene of a passenger at the site of the overturned train carriages

People inspect the place of the passenger train

In eastern India, 207 people died and 850 injured after a passenger train collided with a freight train

Last night’s train disaster in Balasore is the worst train accident in the world for 20 years

India’s deadliest train accidents in recent decades:

June 1981: At least 800 people die when seven rear carriages of an overcrowded passenger train are blown off the track during a cyclone and fall into a river.

July 1988: An express train goes off the rails and plunges into a monsoon-swollen lake near Quilon in South India, killing at least 106 people.

August 1995 – At least 350 people die when two trains collide 200 km (125 mi) from Delhi.

August 1999 – Two trains collide near Calcutta, leading to the deaths of at least 285 people.

October 2005: Several carriages of a passenger train derail in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, near Velugonda. At least 77 people are killed.

July 2011: About 70 people are killed and more than 300 injured when a mail train derails in Fatehpur.

November 2016: About 146 people are killed and more than 200 injured when an express train derails in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

January 2017: At least 41 people die after several carriages of a passenger train derail in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

October 2018: A commuter train runs through a crowd gathered on the tracks for a festival in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, killing at least 59 people and injuring 57.

Videos shared on social media showed the arrival of several ambulances and people being pulled from the upturned train cars.

“I was there and I see blood, broken limbs and people dying around me,” an eyewitness told Reuters by phone.

Hundreds of young people lined up outside a government hospital in Odisha’s Soro to donate blood.

Rescue teams have been mobilized from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and Kolkata in West Bengal, Federal Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a tweet late Friday.

Three National Disaster Response Force teams are at the scene of the accident and six other teams are being mobilized, the country’s National Disaster Response Force said.

The collision occurred around 7pm local time (13:30 GMT) when the Howrah Superfast Express, running from Bangalore to Howrah, West Bengal, derailed and became entangled with the Coromandel Express, running from Kolkata to Chennai, railway officials said.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the authorities’ priority was ‘moving the living to the hospitals’.

The trains that crashed in Balasore, about 200 kilometers (125 mi) from the capital Bhubaneswar, were traveling in the opposite direction.

Nearly 500 police officers and rescue workers attended the accident with 75 ambulances and buses in tow, said Pradeep Jena, the top bureaucrat of Odisha state.

Amitabh Sharma, a spokesman for the railway ministry, said 10 to 12 carriages of one train were derailed, while debris from some of the mutilated carriages fell onto the nearby track.

Up to three carriages of the second train also derailed.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed” by the incident.

On Twitter, he wrote: “Disturbed by the train accident in Odisha. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved.

May the wounded recover quickly. Spoke to Railway Minister Ashwini Waishnaw and took stock of the situation.

“Rescue operations are underway at the scene of the accident and all possible assistance is being provided to those affected.”

Rescuers try to help 200 people reportedly trapped under derailed train cars. In the photo: people trying to escape from the overturned compartments

Local repots say the Coromandel Express, running from Kolkata to Chennai, collided with a freight train in Balasore, eastern India

President Modi said he was “upset” by the train incident in Odisha

The collision is a “serious accident,” HK Dwivedi, the chief secretary of West Bengal, told reporters.

The death toll makes it the world’s deadliest train disaster in 20 years, since a train crashed in Sri Lanka, killing more than 1,000 people in the Boxing Day tsunami.

South Eastern Railway officials, who declined to be named, said they fear there would be a large number of casualties.

Over the years, the Indian government has made efforts to improve rail safety, but despite this, several hundred accidents still occur each year on what is one of the largest rail networks in the world.

The worst rail accident in India’s history occurred in August 1995 at New Deli, killing 358 people.

Most train accidents are due to human error or outdated signaling equipment.

More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains across India every day, on 64,000 kilometers (40,000 mi) of track.

This is a breaking news story – more to follow.