OAN’s Geraldyn Berry
4:37 PM – Friday, June 2, 2023
A horrific crash involving three trains occurred late on Friday in the Odisha state of eastern India, leaving at least 207 people dead, more than 900 others injured, and many more possibly trapped.
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According to Pradeep Jena, the senior official in the state of Odisha, two passenger trains and a cargo train had collided at the city of Balasore, in the state of Odisha. The senior official said that around 500 police officers and rescuers arrived in 75 ambulances and buses to the crash site.
“We are only working (on) sending additional doctors, ambulances, buses, so all those things we are doing so we have not thought of asking what happened, how it happened,” he said.
Amitabh Sharma, a spokeswoman for the railways ministry, had said that 10 to 12 coaches of one train derailed, and pieces of the wrecked cars fell onto an adjacent track. Another passenger train approaching in the opposite way struck it. The second train also derailed, with up to three coaches involved.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed by the train accident,” adding that he had spoken to railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to take “stock of the situation.”
Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Odisha, announced that he will visit the accident site early on Saturday to assess the situation, according to the department.
The Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology of India has declared that the families of those died on Friday will get $12,136, with smaller sums being made available to those who were hurt in the collision.
Several hundred incidents happen annually on India’s railroads, the world’s largest train network with a single administration, despite government attempts to increase rail safety. The deadliest railway catastrophe in Indian history occurred in August 1995 when two trains crashed close to New Delhi, killing 358 people.
Human error and out-of-date signaling equipment are considered the main causes of railway accidents.
It is reported that every day, 14,000 trains carrying more than 12 million passengers traverse India’s 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track.
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