White sheets, part of sleeping kits handed out in air-conditioned coaches of trains now cover bodies and human remains at the accident site of the Odisha triple train crash in Balasore. A diary, a brand new bag, a children’s colouring book among other items are scattered inside a derailed coach – a stark reminder of a never-seen-before tragedy, the death toll for which is nearing 300.
The ‘ground zero’, if you can call it, is an unimaginable tangle of mangled steel and other debris. Around 19 coaches can be seen with at least four to five bogies smashed into each other. It is hard to tell by the way the fallen coaches are spread out – some overturned and some on top of each other – that the Coromandel Express first hit a goods train head-on and, in a matter of minutes, the Howrah-Yesvantpur Express on a parallel track came and rammed into its derailed bogies.
As you cross the Bahanaga Bazar railway station near Balasore, a road goes down to the railway crossing gate beyond which is the accident site. The entire highway is dotted with vehicles belonging to security forces and ambulances. News18 entered coach B6 of the Coromandel Express to gauge the magnitude of damage caused.
The impact of the accident was such that a railway track seems to have gorged its way into the bogie pointing upwards. It gives an idea of how fast the trains were moving when the accident took place. Different items – luggage, slippers, mobile phones, tiffin box – are strewn on the floor of the coach.
The train station, with only four lines and three platforms, now bears testimony to this horrific accident. The rescue teams have used metal cutters to pry the coaches apart. The condition of the unreserved or general coaches, however, is without a doubt the worst. Even after 15 hours of the accident, human remains can still be seen in the twisted ruins of the bogies.
“We are used to working in difficult situations, but the magnitude of this accident is horrific,” an NDRF officer told News18.
A majority of those who were killed in the accident were travelling in the ‘unreserved’ or ‘general’ category coaches, which suffered maximum impact and damage.
High school turns into morgue
The Bahanaga High School, standing adjacent to the railway crossing gate, has now turned into a morgue as close to 100 bodies have been tagged with numbers here. A woman holding a photo was spotted at the school looking for her husband: ‘Didi, have you seen my husband? Is he alive; my husband’s name is Ramesh, he was on his way to Chennai to work’.
Many relatives are at the school looking for their loved ones among the dead. The bodies were tagged and transported in a truck.
Unsung heroes
Amid scenes of chaos and horror, there is one man who is doing everything in his power to help rescue and relief teams. Prasanta Jena, who stays 25 km from the accident site, came looking for his friend who was travelling in the Yesvantpur Express. Despite the news of his friend’s death, Jena has been distributing chilled drinking water to rescue teams.
“I cried for my friend but then thought it was time to stand by each other; so we made a group and have been providing drinking water to army and NDRF personnel as well as media persons. My friend is no more, but who knows I can save someone here,” he told News18.
Jena was not the only such unsung hero from Bahanaga. A person named Kripa cooked khichdi and distributed it among those working at the accident site.
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