Fault in electronic signaling system responsible for deadliest crash in two decades as families search hospitals and mortuaries for missing relatives.
The train derailment in eastern India, which killed at least 288 people and injured more than 800, was caused by a fault in the electronic signaling system that sent trains on the wrong track, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said. told news agency ANI.
“We have identified the cause of the accident and the people responsible,” the minister said on Sunday, adding it was “not appropriate” to give details ahead of a final investigative report into the country’s deadliest rail disaster in decades .
There was confusion over the exact sequence of events leading up to the crash in Balasore district of Odisha state.
But Jaya Verma Sinha, a senior railway official, said the preliminary investigation showed that a signal had been given to the Coromandel Express high-speed train to run on the main track, but the signal later changed and the train entered an adjacent loop instead where it rammed a freight train loaded with iron ore. The collision caused the Coromandel Express carriages to divert tracks, causing the incoming Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express from the other side to also derail, she said.
The passenger trains, which carried 2,296 people, were not moving too fast, she said. Freight-carrying trains often line up on an adjacent loop line to the side, leaving the main line clear for a passing passenger train.
Sinha said the main cause of the crash was related to a fault in the electronic signaling system. She said a detailed investigation will determine whether the error was human or technical.
The electronic interlocking system is a safety mechanism designed to prevent conflicting movements between trains. It also checks the status of signals that tell drivers how close they are to the next train, how fast they can go and if there are any stopped trains on the track.
“The system is 99.9 percent error-free. But there is always a 0.1 percent chance of an error,” Sinha said. When asked if the crash could be a case of sabotage, she said: “Nothing has been ruled out.”
Families searched hospitals and morgues
Authorities worked to clear the mutilated wreckage of the two passenger trains as families searched hospitals and morgues for missing relatives.
On Sunday, a few shattered carriages, mutilated and overturned, were the only remnants of the tragedy. Railroad workers toiled under the blazing sun to lay down blocks of cement to repair the broken tracks.
A crew of excavators was removing mud and debris to clear the crash site.
Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday night and efforts continued overnight using heavy cranes to remove an engine that had fallen on top of a train car. No bodies were found in the engine and work was completed by Sunday morning, said Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of fire and emergency services in Odisha.
The crash came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government focused on modernizing the British colonial-era rail network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with an estimated 1.42 billion people.
Despite government efforts to improve safety, hundreds of accidents occur each year on India’s railways, the fourth largest train network in the world. About 22 million people ride 14,000 trains every day across India, on a 64,000 km (40,000 mi) network.
Modi visited the crash site on Saturday and spoke to rescue officials. He also visited a hospital to inquire about the injured and spoke to some of them.
Modi told reporters he felt the pain of the victims of the crash. He said the government would do its utmost to help them and severely punish anyone found responsible.
In 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of India’s worst rail accidents. In 2016, a passenger train between the cities of Indore and Patna skidded off the tracks, killing 146 people.
Most of such accidents in India are attributed to human error or outdated signaling equipment.