At least 280 killed and 900 injured in Indian train crash

[John Ashworth]

India train crash: at least 280 killed and 900 injured in Odisha state

Express service doing 100mph derails, knocking a stopped freight train into another passenger service, say authorities, in India’s worst such accident in more than 20 years...

India train crash: More than 280 dead after Odisha incident

At least 288 people are now known to have been killed and 900 injured in a multiple train collision in India's eastern Odisha state, officials say. One passenger train is thought to have derailed before being struck by another on the adjacent track late on Friday. It is India's worst train crash this century. Officials say the death toll is expected to rise further. Indian Railways said the two services involved were the Coromandel Express and the Howrah Superfast Express... It is believed that several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed at about 19:00 local time (13:30 GMT), with some of them ending up on the opposite track. Another train - the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah - is then thought to have hit the overturned carriages. Indian officials said that a goods train - which was stationary at the site - was also involved in the incident. They provided no further details...

[John Ashworth]

Modi has spent billions modernising India’s trains but safety is biggest need

Though the number of railway accidents has come down in the past few years, derailment remains the main cause...

Odisha train crash: Why do trains in India go off tracks?

Only a comprehensive inquiry will help uncover the truth behind the incident. Yet it has once again ignited fresh concerns regarding railway safety in India... derailment continues to be a "bugbear for the railways," a former Railway Board chairman, Vivek Sahai, told me. A train can derail for a number of reasons - "a track could be ill-maintained, a coach could be faulty, and there could be an error in driving". A government railway safety report for 2019-20 found derailments were responsible for 70% of the railway accidents, up from 68% the previous year. (Train fires and collisions came next, responsible for 14% and 8% of the total accidents respectively). The report counted 40 derailments involving 33 passenger trains and seven freight trains during the year under review. Of these 17 derailments were caused by track "defects" - this could include fractures and subsidence of tracks. Only nine incidents of derailments were caused because of defects in trains - engines, coaches, wagons - according to the report...

India train accident: Modi vows punishments over deadly Odisha crash

People found guilty over a deadly rail accident in eastern India will be "punished stringently", the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said... It is still not clear what caused the multi-train collision in Balasore district, which has been described as India's worst rail accident this century. A full investigation has been launched, but a preliminary report indicates that the accident was the result of signal failure, said KS Anand, chief public relations officer of the South Eastern Railway... "The Coromandel Express was supposed to travel on the main line, but a signal was given for the loop line instead, and the train rammed into a goods train already parked over there," Mr Anand said. "Its coaches then fell on to the tracks on either side, also derailing the Howrah Superfast Express"...

[John Ashworth]

India train disaster: Signal fault the likely cause, minister says

India's railway minister has suggested a signal fault led to the Odisha rail disaster, with a "change in electronic interlocking" the likely cause. Ashwini Vaishnaw later said the cause and people responsible for the deadly three-train crash in eastern India had been identified but did not elaborate. India's Railway Board said there had been "some kind of signalling interference" rather than failure... At a press conference on Sunday, Jaya Verma Sinha from India's Railway Board said both passenger trains had approached a Balasore district station under a green signal - indicating it was safe - within seconds of each other at the correct speed of under 130kph (81mph)... Ms Verma Sinha said there was "no issue with the electronic interlocking system" and said investigations indicated "some kind of a signalling interference" rather than failure. "Whether it was manual, whether it was incidental, whether it was weather related, whether it was because of wear and tear related, whether it was a maintenance failure, all that will come out after the inquiry," she added. Infrastructure expert Partha Mukhopadhyay told the BBC it should not be possible for green signals to display on the main line if the track is set for the loop. "Signal interlocking is supposed to be failsafe and this level of failure is quite unprecedented"...

[John Ashworth]

Three arrested in India over train crash that killed nearly 300 people

Workers charged with culpable homicide and destruction of evidence after one of country’s deadliest rail accidents... The statement identified the men as two signal engineers and one technician employed with Indian Railways, without giving further details...