Badarwas(Madhya Pradesh):
Twenty three people were killed and forty others injured in a collision between two trains in Madhya Pradesh on Monday morning. (See Pictures)
The station master of the Badarwas station has been arrested after the incident. It is believed that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident. The two drivers, who were missing, were also nabbed. Blood samples of all the three have been sent for testing to trace the presence of alcohol in it.
A little after 4 am, when the passengers were fast asleep, a goods train rammed into the stationary Gwalior Intercity Express at Badarwas in Shivpuri district. Three coaches of the Intercity Express piled up on top of each other due to the impact. Two front bogies of the Express Train were badly damaged after the accident.
While the rescue and relief team reached four hours later, locals living in the vicinity came forward to help and saved many lives.
"Most of us were sleeping, we heard a sound there was a big explosion, then we don't know what happened," said Suresh, one of the injured.
The Army from the neighbouring city Jhansi, came in with helicopter and ferried the injured to hospitals.
Though there is not much clarity on the events that led to the accident, reports suggest the driver of the goods train jumped a signal and didn't change tracks as he should have and rammed into the stationary passenger train.
"From the prima facie, it seemed the train came here after the signal. But how it had passed, and why it had passed, Commission of Railway Safety(CRS) will go deep into it," said the Divisional Railway Manager of West Central Railway Zone, Ghansham Singh.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 5 lakh for the next kin of the dead, Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 50,000 for those with serious and minor injuries respectively.
After every train accident, the Railway Minister has always assured that safety measures would be improved. However, nothing much seems to have changed.
There has been a spate in train accidents over the last few months:
17 August 2010 - Four people were killed in a train accident in Faizabad.
19 July 2010 - 63 dead, more than 165 injured in Sainthia in West Bengal.
18 June 2010 - At least 27 persons were injured, two of them critically, when the Amaravati Express derailed near Koppal after ramming into a road-roller.
28 May 2010 - 148 people were killed when the Gyaneshwari Express derailed after an explosion on the track. (Read: Chronology of major train accidents since 2000)
The station master of the Badarwas station has been arrested after the incident. It is believed that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident. The two drivers, who were missing, were also nabbed. Blood samples of all the three have been sent for testing to trace the presence of alcohol in it.
A little after 4 am, when the passengers were fast asleep, a goods train rammed into the stationary Gwalior Intercity Express at Badarwas in Shivpuri district. Three coaches of the Intercity Express piled up on top of each other due to the impact. Two front bogies of the Express Train were badly damaged after the accident.
While the rescue and relief team reached four hours later, locals living in the vicinity came forward to help and saved many lives.
"Most of us were sleeping, we heard a sound there was a big explosion, then we don't know what happened," said Suresh, one of the injured.
The Army from the neighbouring city Jhansi, came in with helicopter and ferried the injured to hospitals.
Though there is not much clarity on the events that led to the accident, reports suggest the driver of the goods train jumped a signal and didn't change tracks as he should have and rammed into the stationary passenger train.
"From the prima facie, it seemed the train came here after the signal. But how it had passed, and why it had passed, Commission of Railway Safety(CRS) will go deep into it," said the Divisional Railway Manager of West Central Railway Zone, Ghansham Singh.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 5 lakh for the next kin of the dead, Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 50,000 for those with serious and minor injuries respectively.
After every train accident, the Railway Minister has always assured that safety measures would be improved. However, nothing much seems to have changed.
There has been a spate in train accidents over the last few months:
17 August 2010 - Four people were killed in a train accident in Faizabad.
19 July 2010 - 63 dead, more than 165 injured in Sainthia in West Bengal.
18 June 2010 - At least 27 persons were injured, two of them critically, when the Amaravati Express derailed near Koppal after ramming into a road-roller.
28 May 2010 - 148 people were killed when the Gyaneshwari Express derailed after an explosion on the track. (Read: Chronology of major train accidents since 2000)
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