At least 35 people have been killed in eastern India after a train rammed into a crowd of pilgrims and dozens more are injured, a senior police officer told AFP today.
“Until now we have information that 35 people have been killed in the incident and dozens are injured,” S.K. Bharadwaj, an additional director general of police who is overseeing security at the crash site, said.
An Indian express train had ploughed into a crowd of Hindu pilgrims in the country’s east, killing the 35 and triggering a riot as angry crowds went on the rampage, officials said.
The pilgrims were crossing the tracks at a station in the state of Bihar when the interstate passenger train ran into them, injuring another 12 people, police and Indian Railways officials said.
“Until now we have reports (from the ground) of 15 bodies and over a dozen others injured,” local railway chief Arun Malik told AFP earlier.
“We suspect the toll may rise later in the day because we are not getting all the information from the site because of angry agitation by local people,” Malik said.
Crowds converged on the Rajya Rani Express, setting carriages on fire and ransacking Dharhara station, some 200 km from the state capital Patna, Malik said.
“Six carriages have been set on fire and the station has been ransacked by the mob. Our staff have fled the station fearing attacks,” he said.
A senior railways official said it appeared the pilgrims were not aware of the incoming train.
“Two trains were already stationary on other tracks and the Rajya Rani Express was given permission to pass,” Arunendra Kumar, chairman of the national railway board, told reporters in New Delhi.
“The accident occurred because some people left the platform of the station and came on the tracks,” Kumar said.
Hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees make annual pilgrimages to holy sites, including the devotees who trek each year through treacherous mountain passes and along icy streams to reach the holy Amarnath Cave Shrine located at an altitude of 3857m, where a Shiva Lingam, an ice stalagmite shaped as a phallus and symbolising the Hindu God Shiva, stands for worship.
There are hundreds of accidents on the railways annually.
In 2012, a government report said that almost 15,000 people were killed every year crossing India’s rail, which it described as an annual “massacre” owing to poor safety standards.
Pedestrians guilty of “unlawful trespassing” walked across the tracks at many unofficial crossing points, the report said, adding that about 6,000 of the deaths occurred in congested Mumbai alone.
Attempts to stop people riding on the roofs of trains have largely failed. Vehicles routinely drive around barriers at crossings, and passengers are often seen hanging out of open doors in the carriages.
The data is not broken down, but a vast majority of these deaths are people falling from the open doors of carriages or being hit on the tracks, which are mostly unsecured.
One of India’s worst rail accidents was in 1981 when a train plunged into a river, also in Bihar, killing an estimated 800 people.
Monday 19 August 2013
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/indian-train-runs-over-pilgrims-kills-at-least-10
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