Indian authorities yesterday made fervent appeals to families to help identify more than 100 unclaimed bodies in hospitals and mortuaries after 275 people were killed in the country’s deadliest rail crash in more than two decades.
On Friday, a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped the tracks and struck another passenger train passing in the opposite direction near the district of Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha.
Following nonstop efforts to rescue survivors and clear and repair the track, trains resumed running over that section of the line on Sunday night.
Photo: Reuters
As of Monday evening, about 100 bodies were yet to be identified, a senior state health department official said.
Odisha Director of Health Bijay Kumar Mohapatra said that authorities were trying to source iced containers to help preserve the bodies.
“Unless they are identified, a post mortem cannot be done,” Mohapatra said, adding that under Odisha state regulations no autopsy can be conducted on an unclaimed body until 96 hours has passed.
At state capital Bhubaneswar’s biggest hospital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, large television screens displayed pictures of the dead to help desperate families who are scouring hospitals and mortuaries for friends and relatives.
A detailed list was made of distinguishing features for each body, but relatives could first view photographs, however gruesome, to identify missing loved ones, a senior police official said.
The trains had passengers from several states and officials from seven states — Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — were in Balasore to help people claim bodies and take the dead home, the police official added.
The Indian Ministry of Railways has recommended that the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) take over the probe into the cause of the disaster while a separate inquiry, led by A.M. Chowdhary, commissioner of railway safety for the southeastern circle, started on Monday.
The CBI team was yesterday to reach the site and start its investigation.
Railway police filed a criminal negligence case, without naming any suspects.
A signal failure was the likely cause of the disaster, according to preliminary findings, which indicated that the Coromandel Express, heading southbound to Chennai from Kolkata, moved off the main line and entered a loop track — a side track used to park trains — at 128kph, crashing into the stationary freight train.
That crash caused the engine and first four or five coaches of the Coromandel Express to jump the tracks, topple and hit the last two coaches of the Yeshwantpur-Howrah train heading in the opposite direction at 126kph on the second main track.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
RSS