Sixteen passengers were killed and 161 injured when 13 compartments of the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express from Howrah derailed while changing tracks in Orissa's Jajpur district.
General Manager East Coast Railway Ajay Kumar Goel confirming the casualties said that 13 compartments of the express train, which was running at a high speed, derailed just after it passed through the Jajpur Road railway station with the engine overturning on Friday evening.
Goel who inspected the accident site told PTI that of the 13 compartments, 11 were sleeper class and two general.
Director General of Police Manmohan Praharaj said that the accident occurred while the express train was changing tracks outside the station.
The engine of the train went onto one track and capsized, while the bogies which remained on another derailed and scattered in all directions, he said.
Passengers who were on the train spoke of feeling a number of sharp jerks moments before the accident at around 8:00pm suggesting that the driver applied the brakes.
The wheels and springs of the bogies lay in all directions 200 to 300 metre away from the spot, a PTI correspondent on the scene saw. One of the 13 bogies had climbed onto another.
The accident occurred at between 7:30 to 7:40 pm, Superintendent of Police (Railways) Neeraj Swain said. The mishap came on a day when Railway Minister Lalu Prasad in his rail budget highlighted the safety record of the railways and decline in train accidents.
Prasad said a probe would be ordered into the accident.
He announced Rs five lakh and a job for the next of the kin of the dead, Rs 50,000 for the seriously injured and Rs 10,000 for those with minor injuries.
Railway officials said the death toll could go up as some of the injured were in a serious condition.
The injured were shifted to the hospital here and the SCB Medical College Hospital at Cuttack, about 60 km from the accident site, railway sources said.
A massive operation was mounted after the accident and medical teams and ambulances were mobilised from Jajpur, Cuttack and adjoining districts to ferry the injured to hospitals.
Rescue teams were engaged in the operations on a war footing equipped with gas cutters under the supervision of senior railway, police and district administration officials. Though rescue operations were initially affected due to the darkness, flood lights were rigged up soon.
Orissa Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) teams joined the rescue operation with high-tech equipment.
Before the police arrived on the scene volunteers at the Satyasai Seva Sadan nearby who were at prayer at the time rushed to the accident spot.
Local people also arrived on the spot armed with ladders. They broke open compartment windows and pulled out dazed passengers.
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