India’s railway minister says the train derailment that killed at least 275 people and injured hundreds more was caused by a fault in electronic signals that sent a train onto the wrong tracks.
Ashwini Vaishnaw’s explanation Sunday came as authorities worked to clean up the wreckage of two passenger trains that derailed Friday night in eastern India, in one of the country’s deadliest rail accidents in decades.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that preliminary investigations revealed that a signal was given to the train to enter the main line of the track but was later removed. The train entered another line, known as the loop line, and collided with a goods train parked there.
“‘Who did it and what caused it will come out in an investigation,” Ashwini Vaishnaw said in an interview with the New Delhi Television network.
Authorities have begun clearing the wreckage of trains from the disaster in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha.
The death toll, which was earlier estimated at 288, was revised on Sunday after it was found that some bodies had been counted twice, according to a statement by a senior Odisha state official. Another five bodies were taken to a school-used funeral home near the scene of the accident early Sunday. “We don’t know how many more bodies will come,” said a health worker.
The accident happened at a time when the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was focusing on modernizing the British colonial-era railway network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion people. Despite the government’s efforts to improve rail safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on Indian railways, the largest railway network under one management in the world.
Preliminary investigation revealed that a signal was given to the Coromandel Express to enter the main track line but the signal was later withdrawn. The train entered another line, known as the loop line, and collided with a goods train parked there, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
When asked about the cause of the accident and preliminary findings, India’s railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said: “Let the inquiry report come out. It is not worth commenting on. “
Chaotic scenes erupted on Friday night as rescuers climbed atop the wrecked trains to pry open doors and windows using cutting torches to try to rescue people trapped inside. train cars.
Modi visited the crash site on Saturday to review the relief effort and talk to rescue officials. He also visited a hospital where he asked the doctors about the treatments given to the injured, and talked to some of them.
Modi told reporters that he felt the pain of those who suffered in the accident. The government will do everything to help them and severely punish anyone found responsible, he said.
Ten to 12 coaches of a train derailed, and debris from some of the damaged coaches fell on the nearby tracks. The debris hit another passenger train coming from the opposite direction, causing up to three coaches of the second train to also derail, said Amitabh Sharma, a railway ministry spokesman.
In 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of India’s worst train accidents. In 2016, a passenger train derailed on the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
Most train accidents in India are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.
More than 12 million people ride 14,000 trains across India every day, traveling over 64,000km (40,000 miles) of track.