HYDERABAD/BOMBAY, 4 January 2003 — Eighteen people were killed and more than 50 injured yesterday when the Secunderabad-Manmad Express train collided with a goods train in Maharashtra, a railway official said.
“All bodies have been recovered from the derailed coaches and the death toll is at 18,” P.B. Murthy, regional railway manager, South Central Railways told AFP. He said that 11 of the injured were in a serious condition. The crash happened in the early morning outside Ghatnandur station in the Beed district of Maharashtra state, 300 kilometers east of Bombay.
The express train which was heading to Manmad in Maharashtra from Secunderabad in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, crashed into a stationary goods train which was on the same track and at least three carriages of the passenger train derailed. South Central Railway spokesman P. Krishnaiah said that the accident occurred around 1.30 a.m., at a spot about 330 kms north of Hyderabad.
Eight of the dead have been identified as Mahesh Samaria (aged 35) of the AC coach, L. V. Rao (45), also of the AC coach, S. D. Kamble, Dattatreya Waghmare (50), Mohammed Yasin (65), Bajikar Baliram Kishan Rao (25), Abhang Rao Nivarthi Virdar (35) and Satish (25), who traveled in the general coach. Satish succumbed to injuries in the hospital.
Describing the accident, another railway official said three coaches of the train as well as the engine jumped tracks after the collision with the goods train.
“The toll could have been higher, but fortunately the situation seems to be under control now,” he added. Murthy said a relief operation was still continuing with the authorities working on clearing the tracks.
“The derailed coaches are being removed from the accident site. We are bringing the network back on track as soon as possible,” he said.
Railways Minister Nitish Kumar blamed the accident on human error. “It was a human failure as the point was not set for the train which went ahead on the same track where another train was already stationed,” Kumar said in New Delhi.
The minister said the injured had been taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Parli. He announced a relief package and compensation for the victims and their families.
A special train to transport the surviving passengers of the train was on its way to the scene of the accident, while a team of railway officials and experts had already arrived at the site, South Central Railways assistant commercial manager Satyam Babu said. A Central Railway spokesman at Bombay said inquiry counters had been opened at Manmad, where the train was to have terminated.
Yesterday’s accident was the second train crash in India in two weeks. On Dec. 21, 20 passengers were killed and 90 injured after nine carriages of the Kachiguda-Bangalore Express derailed in Andhra Pradesh. Regional police blamed the derailment on sabotage.
Most of India’s more than one billion people depend on the 151-year-old railway, which covers over 63,000 km (40,000 miles) and is the world’s second-largest, for long-distance transport. Railways runs almost 14,000 trains carrying more than 13 million passengers a day and has about 300 accidents a year.
Transport critics say a surge in traffic and a lack of funds to renovate the system have made it vulnerable to accidents.
But rail authorities defend their safety record, saying the accident rate has fallen to a tenth of levels of the early 1960s.
