Survivors recall horror of Odisha train crash: ‘Suddenly everything went silent. And then there were screams’

A young man in his twenties wails as he runs towards the mortuary, moments after receiving the news he had been dreading – that his brother is among the 275 victims of India's deadliest rail crash this century, and that now he must identify his remains.

Like many of the relatives gathering here at the largest hospital in Bhubaneswar, Sheikh Sahagir travelled for hours overnight after hearing on TV about the crash involving three trains including the Coromandel Express, on which his 20-year-old brother Sheikh Sahid Alam was a passenger.

They first made their way to the site of Friday’s crash at Balasore to look for him, “but after reaching the spot we were asked to visit hospitals, and from there officials directed us to visit AIIMS [hospital]”, he says. Here the stench of rotten flesh fills the air as bodies at the mortuary – which does not have refrigeration – begin to decompose in the sweltering heat.

Adding to the chaos is the vast number of those hospitalised with injuries. Alongside the dead and missing are at least 1,199 people who suffered varying severities of injury, according to state officials. Of these, 939 patients have been released from hospital so far.

Most of the victims of the crash were migrant labourers and people who work as cheap labour in industries, many of them from West Bengal, who often take the overcrowded train.

The Coromandel Express was packed with passengers and travelling at “full speed” at the time of the incident, officials said. The train travelspast the hills along India’s eastern coast and normally takes more than 24 hours to complete its journey of more than 1,600km.

In a hospital in Soro near the crash site, where overwhelmed doctors and nurses worked round-the-clock to treat the injured, survivors recalled the fatal accident.

Anwar Sheikh, 35, was on the Howrah Yesvantpur Express when the crash took place. He had found a spot on the floor to sleep when a loud noise pierced through the air. “Suddenly everything went silent,” he recalled. “And then a minute later there were screams.”

He was pulled out of the coach and taken to the hospital as he bled through multiple places in his body.

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“The Coromandel Express was extremely crowded that day and we didn’t get any seats in the general coaches, so we sat by the door,” said another wounded survivor from West Bengal, on his way home after being discharged. “The journey began after 3pm and after a few hours there was a huge sound and we were jolted to the other side.

“I don’t remember how I survived. General and sleeper coaches were the worst affected,” he adds, referring to the cheaper classes without air conditioning that make up the majority of the train. “The locals saved us.”

Officials say they do not expect the death toll, which has fluctuated over the past two days as some bodies were counted twice, to rise further – but The Independent spoke to many families who remain in the dark over what happened to loved ones counted among the missing.

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In the nearby city of Cuttack, Mukesh Kumar says he has not heard from his brother Amresh since the crash and that he no longer has much hope that he will be found alive. His big fear now is that his body might be “dumped somewhere” unidentified if they don’t find it on time.

Speaking at SCB Medical College and Hospital, he tells The Independent: “We have been searching for him since yesterday, we have not found him yet.

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“They were a group of friends. We looked everywhere and found one of them in one of the hospitals.”

Standing next to him, with his swollen eyes visibly red due to lack of sleep, was a man looking for his 16-year-old brother-in-law. “We arrived on Friday night and since then divided ourselves into two groups to look for the missing,” he said.

They too fear what will happen if they are too late. “We haven’t found him or his body,” he says.

SCB officials have set up a helpdesk outside where people were seen desperately inquiring after their missing relatives. But there was little information for most and their wait continued as both federal and state ministers made rounds of the hospital, speaking to survivors.

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Railway authorities cited a preliminary report to claim that “signal failure” was the likely cause behind the crash. Prime minister Narendra Modi, who visited the crash site in Odisha on Saturday, announced that “those found guilty will be severely punished“.

The federal government has announced compensation payments of Rs 1m (£9,746) will be made to the next of kin of the dead, Rs 200,000 (£1,949) will be paid to those grievously injured and Rs 50,000 (£487) for people with minor injuries.

According to the Odisha government, 17 coaches of two passenger trains were derailed.

A preliminary investigation indicated the Coromandel Express, heading to Chennai from Kolkata, moved out of the main track and entered a loop track (a side track used to park trains) at 128kmph, crashing into a freight train parked on the loop track, said railway board member Jaya Varma Sinha.

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That crash caused the engine and first four or five coaches of the Coromandel Express to jump the tracks, topple and hit the last two coaches of the Yeshwantpur-Howrah train heading in the opposite direction at 126 kph on the second main track, she said.

This caused those two coaches to jump the tracks and add to the massive pileup, Ms Sinha said.

The drivers of both passenger trains were injured but survived.

The investigation is now focused on the computer-controlled track management system, called the “interlocking system”, which directs a train to an empty track at the point where two tracks meet. The system is suspected to have malfunctioned and should not have allowed the Coromandel Express to take the loop track, Ms Sinha said.