India train disaster: Signal fault the likely cause, minister says

India’s Railways Minister suggested that the Orissa railway accident was caused by a signal failure, likely due to “changes in electronic interlocks”.

Ashwini Vaishnau later said the cause and the person responsible for the fatal three-car accident in eastern India had been identified, but did not give further details.

The Indian Railways Board said there was “some signal jamming” rather than a malfunction.

A report on India’s worst rail disaster of the century is due to be released soon.

Officials said the death toll was revised down to 275 because some bodies were counted twice.

Of the 1,175 injured who were taken to hospital, 793 have been discharged. Some families are still looking for their loved ones.

In railway signaling, an electronic interlocking system sets the route for each train within a set area and ensures the safe movement of trains on the track.

In this accident, a passenger train mistakenly entered a loop line beside the main line, then collided with a stationary freight train and derailed. After that, the derailed vehicle collided with the rear vehicle of a second passenger train running in the opposite direction.

Jaya Verma Sinha of the Indian Railways Commission said at a press conference on Sunday that both passenger trains were under safety green lights and within seconds of each other at a reasonable speed of less than 130 kilometers per hour (81 miles per hour). said to have approached the station of

Passenger trains were scheduled to pass each other on the main line, he said, but the Coromandel Express collided with a freight train laden with iron ore on the loop line, causing the engines and some of the coaches to float above the heavy goods carriages. It says. .

He told reporters that the impact of the collision was entirely absorbed by the passenger train and that the freight train did not derail or move.

The Howler Superfast Express nearly crossed in the opposite direction, but was hit by a derailed Coromandel Express with two rear coaches.

“There is no problem with the electronic interlocking system,” Verma Sinha said, adding that an investigation showed there was “some kind of signal interference” rather than a malfunction.

“Whether it was manual, accidental, weather, wear, maintenance failure, all will be revealed after investigation,” she added. .

Infrastructure expert Partha Mukhopadhyay told the BBC it should not be possible to show a green light on the main line if the track is set to be a loop line.

“Signal interlocks are supposed to be fail-safe, but this level of failure is unprecedented,” said Mukhopadhyay of the Delhi-based think tank Policy Research Center.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the scene of the accident on Saturday and vowed that those found guilty would be “severely punished”.

At the time of the accident, about 2,000 people were on board two passenger trains, the Coromandel Express, which runs between Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Chennai (formerly Madras), and the Howrah Superfast Express, which runs from Yesvantpur to Howrah. believed to have been on board. Around 19:00 (13:30 GMT) on Friday.

Orissa state official Pradeep Jena told the BBC that at least 187 bodies remain unidentified and authorities have uploaded pictures of the victims to government websites and will release DNA if necessary. He said he would conduct an inspection.

Officials said the rescue operation was completed on Saturday and efforts are underway to clear the wreckage and resume train services.

India has the world’s largest rail network, serving millions of passengers daily, but much of the rail infrastructure is in need of improvement.

Trains in India can be very crowded at this time of year as more people travel during school holidays.

The country’s worst rail accident was in 1981, when a cyclone in Bihar blew an overcrowded passenger train off the tracks and into a river, killing about 800 people.