Search for dead and closure continues one year after Bahanaga train accident

While leaving his home for Chennai on June 2 last year, Sk Zamalludin promised his wife Mafoja Bibi that he would return with good savings so that he could take her to a good gynecologist. Seventeen years after their marriage, the couple from Uttar Chausathibadi in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal remained childless.

However, Mafoja did not know that Zamalludin's promise and her dream of becoming a mother would not come true. The 37-year-old mason was part of an 11-member team that boarded the ill-fated Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express which collided with a goods train at Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore district, resulting in the death of 296 passengers.

Exactly one year after the tragedy, India's deadliest train accident since 1995, Mafoja is still waiting. “My uncle, brother-in-law and other family members searched the premises in Bahanaga, hospitals and temporary morgues, but there was no trace of his body. His father provided the DNA sample, but it did not match the stored bodies. I am so unhappy that I couldn’t even get his body back,” Mafoja sobbed, still mourning her loss and now living in her father’s house.

The ex gratia promised by the Ministry of Railways and the World Bank government eluded him because Zamalludin's body was deemed “untraceable”. Of the 11 in the group, only one survived the accident. Eight deceased passengers have been identified while two are still missing. One of them is Zamalludin.

A year after the tragic accident, the victims' family members live in constant emptiness and uncertainty. About 660 km south of 24 Parganas, Sanju Devi, 55, of Misraulia village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, is inconsolable as she recounts the days she spent searching for the body of her only son at the AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, where the 81 bodies were kept for identification after the tragedy. .

“We had identified the body to AIIMS and submitted the required documents. Another person came and claimed it was his son. We provided our DNA samples and waited at least a month. The officials said the samples did not match and refused us the body. We had to return empty-handed,” she said.

Many families were able to identify and cremate or bury their loved ones, but for some, like Sanju Devi, the search was like a bottomless pit.

The Odisha government had to cremate 28 unclaimed bodies almost four months after the incident as the claimants' DNA samples did not match. Out of over 150 DNA samples collected from victims' families, the samples of 44 claimants did not match, depriving their relatives of the ex-gratia compensation package provided by the Ministry of Railways and their respective state governments . According to experts, because the bodies were received more than 30 hours after their deaths – some after 48 hours – DNA sequencing and profiling represented a herculean task for forensic laboratories due to poor quality some samples.

“DNA sequencing of bodies in an advanced state of decomposition is always a problem, particularly if the ideal body remains such that molars are not available or the quality of muscle tissue is poor. Embalming was also delayed as the bodies were received late at AIIMS. In some bodies, quality DNA samples could not be extracted due to delay in embalming,” said an official involved in the process.

Digital anomaly

According to data compiled by railway authorities and the Odisha government, 296 passengers died in the train accident and 636 passengers were injured, 177 of them seriously. The Railways has announced Rs 10 lakh as ex-gratia for the relatives of the deceased and Rs 2 lakh for seriously injured passengers and Rs 50,000 for minor injuries.

South Eastern Railway (SER) Chief Personnel Officer (Administrator) Mahendra Kumar Prasad informed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in September last year that ex gratia, 267 families had been handed over with corpses and two cases of death. are not yet resolved due to lack of documentation. The Odisha government, meanwhile, informed the NHRC that 236 deaths have been recorded, out of which 230 death certificates have been issued so far. The certificates of the remaining six persons were not issued due to lack of required documents. The authorities requested documents from the respective families to issue death certificates.

A day after the incident, the Odisha government reduced the death toll to 275 from 288 announced earlier. Gradually, this figure rose to 296, as 11 passengers died while being treated in hospitals.

Meanwhile, the NHRC has directed the Chairman of the Railway Board and the Chief Secretary of Odisha to submit a detailed report within six weeks after the anomaly in the number of casualties and deaths recorded was noticed in the reports submitted to the supreme rights committee by the two authorities. about the train accident.

Dark memories linger

It's been a year. Yet dark memories of that evening are still vivid in the minds of people who witnessed the horrific train crash and its aftermath. Many of them are still dealing with the emotional toll it took on them.

The Coromandel Express had entered the overtaking loop at full speed instead of the main line a few meters before the station and collided with a freight train. Due to the high speed of the Coromandel Express, its 21 coaches derailed and three of them collided with the SMVT Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express entering the adjacent track.

People who had stopped on both sides of the railway gate, as well as shopkeepers and residents were the first responders. They rushed to the scene, climbed onto the wreckage and pulled out the wounded trapped in the mangled wagons.

Abinash Pati was in his electrical equipment store when he heard the accident. “We heard a loud roar followed by screams that I will never be able to forget. Some injured people were thrown away from the bogies, others were still trapped inside. I had never seen so many bodies in one place. I called my friends and started evacuating the injured passengers,” he said. Soon, the rescue teams – fire brigade, Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force and National Disaster Response Force arrived. Crews worked for several days to clear the rubble.

Broken promises

Pain, loss and memories aside, a year after the tragedy, the promises made by the local administration and the Ministry of Railways for the development of Bahanaga station and its outskirts are still not kept.

Following the accident, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had pledged to prioritize the development of Bahanaga station and upgrade infrastructure, strengthen safety measures and to improve overall operational efficiency.

The station continues to operate in a dark room. Two small sheds provide passenger cover on the platforms along the Up and Down lines and there are no cold drinking water facilities. The waiting room is filled with rainwater even after a small downpour due to the lack of a proper drainage system.

Upgrades to critical infrastructure, including relocation of the boardroom, construction of platform sheds and a waiting room with amenities, have been delayed. Only six passenger trains stop at the station, forcing thousands of passengers from the region to travel to Balasore to board the express trains.

The Railway Minister, a member of the Rajya Sabha from the state, had approved Rs 1.55 crore from the MPLAD scheme for various development works in the outskirts. He had also announced that Rs 1 crore would be released by the Indian Railways for the renovation of the Bahanaga hospital.

Bahanaga sarpanch Brajendra Panda said nothing had changed. The condition of the station has worsened over the past year. “The drinking water standpipe was damaged. Since there is no shed and the taps provide hot water all day, people make arrangements themselves,” he said. A new station building, under construction for more than three years, has not yet been completed. Railway authorities said Rs 1 crore was spent on various development works in the area and an advanced life support ambulance was provided to Balasore Hospital. SER CPRO Aditya Chaudhary said the station development plan was on schedule and would be executed as promised.

“There has been a lot of work on the security aspects. A triple locking system has been adopted in all goomties and the availability of a complete scheme is ensured for all stations, level crossings and auto goomties. No work is undertaken without approved drawings,” he added.

The construction of a much-needed railway viaduct near Bahanaga station also seems a distant dream.