Balasore: As the death toll touches over 200, and about 900 injured in the horrific train crash in Odisha, involving the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train, a survivor recalled last night’s ordeal.
Pijush Poddar, a resident of Berhampore in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, was travelling to Tamil Nadu in the Coromandel Express to join work there when the accident happened.
“We were jolted and suddenly saw the train bogie turn on one side. Many of us were thrown out of the compartment by the momentum of the derailment. When we managed to crawl out, we found bodies lying all around,” he said.
The crash, one of the deadliest in India in the recent times, involved the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train.
More than 2,000 people gathered at the Balasore Medical College and Hospital in the night to help the injured, and many also donated blood.
Gas cutters were being used to bring out the bodies from under the derailed coaches. “Some of the scenes at the site were too gory to describe,” said another passenger.
Railway tracks were almost destroyed at the spot as mangled coaches lay strewn all over, with some having mounted on another, while a few bogies turned turtle due to the impact.
Locals said they heard consecutive loud sounds, following which they rushed to the spot and found the derailed coaches, which were nothing but “a mangled heap of steel”.
“The local people really went out on a limb to help us… They not only helped in pulling out people but retrieved our luggage and got us water,” Rupam Banerjee, one of the passengers, told reporters.
So far, 18 long-distance trains have been cancelled due to the accident, which happened on the Howrah-Chennai main line in the Kharagpur division of the South Eastern Railway.
