India’s rail crash: what we know
A train crash in eastern India on Friday was the country’s worst rail disaster in two decades, killing more than 230 people. It has raised questions about rail safety in a country that has invested heavily in the system in recent years after a long history of fatal accidents.
238 people confirmed dead
A passenger train derailed and hit two other trains in the Balasore district of Odisha state, officials said. The state secretary, Pradeep Jena, said on Saturday that 238 people died in the crash and another 900 were injured. With the rescue efforts still underway, the toll is likely to rise.
The crash occurred when several carriages of one train derailed and hit a second, the train operator, South Eastern Railway, said in a statement. Local officials said a third train of freight was eventually involved, but details of this were not yet clear.
One of the trains involved was a Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express train, according to South Eastern Railway. The Coromandel Express service is known for connecting the largest cities on the east coast of India at relatively high speed.
The train derailed near Balasore
The crash took place near Balasore, a coastal city in the eastern state of Odisha (formerly Orissa), which is known for its ancient temples and its history as a 17th-century British seaport. The coastline along the Bay of Bengal is prone to tropical cyclones, especially in October and November.
Balasore, in the northeastern part of the state, has a railway station, but it is several hours’ drive to the nearest airport, in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha. May is usually the hottest time of the year, and daily high temperatures were around 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the days before the crash.
Officials said all hospitals in the area were on standby. A day of mourning was declared in Odisha, home to 45 million people, and dozens of trains were cancelled.
Derailments are less common
Often referred to as the lifeblood of India’s economy, the country’s vast rail network is one of the largest in the world and is vital to life and livelihoods in India, particularly in the more rural areas. Almost all railway lines in India, 98 percent, were built between 1870 and 1930, according to a 2018 report study published in the American Economic Review.
The deadliest accident in Indian railway history occurred in 1981, when a passenger train derailed while crossing a bridge in the state of Bihar. The cars sank in the Bagmati River, killing an estimated 750 passengers; many victims were never recovered.
Derailments were once common, averaging 475 per year from 1980 to about 2002. They are much less common, averaging just over 50 per year in the decade leading up to 2021, according to a paper presented by railway officials at the World Congress on Disaster Management.
Rail safety in general has improved in recent years, with the total number of serious rail accidents falling steadily to 22 in fiscal year 2020, compared to more than 300 a year two decades ago. In 2020, India had recorded zero passenger fatalities in such episodes for two years in a row. It was a first and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government hailed it as an achievement. Until 2017, more than 100 passengers were killed each year.
Yet there are still fatal accidents. In 2016, 14 railway carriages derailed in the middle of the night in northeast India, killing more than 140 sleeping passengers and injuring 200 others. Officials at the time said a “break” in the tracks could have been responsible. In 2017, a nighttime derailment in South India killed at least 36 passengers and injured 40 others.
Friday’s accident was at least the deadliest since a 1999 crash in West Bengal that killed 285 people.
Modi has made improving transportation a priority
A major reason for the improved safety was the abolition of thousands of unmanned level crossings, which the Modi government said was achieved in 2019. The relatively low engineering work of building underpasses and installing more signal conductors drastically reduced the number of accidents.
Mr Modi has made it a priority to improve infrastructure across the country, especially the transport systems. In recent years, railways, one of the most visible projects for ordinary citizens, have received attention for a series of high-tech initiatives. Mr Modi has inaugurated medium-distance electric trains and is building a Japanese-style “bullet train” corridor on the west coast to connect Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
The train system, and especially train accidents, have long influenced the fate of Indian politicians. The cabinet position of Minister of Railways is one of the most sought after, both high profile and influential in business and industry. Suresh Prabhu, who is credited with designing New Delhi’s world-class metro system, was forced to resign in September 2017 after a series of minor mishaps.
Within hours of Friday’s crash, some opposition politicians called for the current minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, to resign before he managed to reach the site. That Mr. Vaishnaw, also Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, suggests that railways have become less important within India’s range of development projects. But they still possess the power to capture the public’s attention like no other.