HYDERABAD, 30 October 2005 — Rescue workers pulled 100 bodies from seven coaches of a passenger train that derailed and fell into a rain-swollen river in southern India yesterday, officials said, warning that scores more people were still trapped inside. The driver of the ill-fated train also died in the accident.
“We have recovered 100 bodies so far. And some bodies may have been washed away” by the fast moving flood waters of the river, said Thomas Verghese, general manager of India’s Southern Railway.
The injured had been flown by helicopters to hospitals in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, local police Inspector General Govind Singh said.
Army divers and local volunteers swam out to the coaches to help pull out the injured. Other soldiers, lowered onto the roof of the coaches by helicopter, used gas cutters to open up the top of coaches and pull out people, who were hanging on to luggage racks and ceiling fans. About 100 injured passengers were rescued from the coaches, which derailed after floods washed away the tracks in the town of Veligonda in Andhra Pradesh state.
Scores of passengers were still trapped inside the coaches, at least five of which were lying on their side, partially submerged in water. One of the coaches was resting on top of another.
The engine and the first seven carriages fell into the floodwaters when the train hit breaches in the track caused by water overflowing from reservoirs following incessant rains in the region in the last two days, he said.
The Railways Ministry earlier said more than 100 people were injured and had been sent to hospital and that 1,100 passengers, including those rescued, had been sent on to their destinations after the accident.
An eyewitness at the scene near the town of Nalgonda counted at least 50 bodies laid out on the bank of the massive body of floodwater, which is usually a small stream.
Heavy rains have battered southern India for more than a week, causing at least 100 other deaths in house collapses and drownings in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The corpses of men and women — adults and children — lay on the soft marshy ground, many clad in brightly colored but now sodden clothes, television images showed.
Some looked as if they were sleeping. One man died with his arm outstretched as if grasping for someone or something.
Two army helicopters which had been hauling bodies away with a rope and harness called off operations because it was proving too difficult, officials at the scene said.
Rescue teams, with the help of local villagers, were instead using ropes to help them wade through the water to reach the train carriages and then drag bodies onto higher land.
Two men helped each other carry the body of a little boy, one taking him by the arms, the other holding the child’s legs.
Fourteen inflatable boats were brought in to help with the removal of the bodies, a disaster management official said.
The Delta Fast Passenger train derailed as it hit a section of the track at Nalgonda, about 70 km from the state capital Hyderabad.
Ashim Khurana, joint secretary in the Home Ministry for disaster management, said naval divers had joined the rescue mission.
Khurana emphasized the difficulty of the task.
“You can’t access the train because of the gushing water. The rear engine is pulling the train (into the water).”
Television pictures showed brown muddy waters swirling around the wreckage. Passengers waiting to be rescued stood on top of some of the carriages which had not been fully submerged.
Some passengers were shown climbing gingerly down a rickety-looking white ladder placed against one carriage. Two ropes strung along either side of the ladder served as an additional support.
One of the seven coaches that derailed carried 110 passengers.
The train was serving the route between the coastal town of Repalli and the inland city of Secunderabad when it derailed between the stations of Ramanapet and Vellugonda, the official said.
State-run Indian Railways transports more than 13 million passengers daily on networks that sprawl 108,700 km across the nation with a population of more than one billion. — Additional input from agencies
