India’s worst train accident leaves 288 dead, 900 injured in Odisha 

A horrific train accident took place near Odisha’s Balasore district on Friday, in which 288 people have been confirmed dead and around 900 injured so far. In the accident, three trains collided with each other. The incident involved three trains – the Coromandel Express train from Salimar to Chennai, the SM Visvesvaraya-Howrah Superfast Express from Yeswantpur in Bengaluru to Howrah near Kolkata and a freight train. In the accident, 17 coaches of Coromandel Express and Superfast Express were derailed. Green signal was given to Coromandel Express due to some technical glitch or the train left the main line and went to loop line due to technical glitch. Then this accident happened.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reached the site of the Balasore accident on Saturday, said that the government is very serious about the accident and will not give immunity to anyone responsible for it. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has announced to give Rs 10 lakh to the relatives of the deceased, Rs 1 lakh to the seriously injured and Rs 50,000 to the minor injured. The Prime Minister’s Office has announced that Rs 2 lakh will be given to the relatives of the deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured from the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund. Apart from this, Mamata Banerjee has announced a compensation of five lakh rupees to the people of West Bengal. 

Similarly150 died when 14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express derailed near Kanpur in November 2016. 145 killed in West Bengal after a passenger train derailed and was hit by a cargo train in 2010 May. In 2005 October 111 people were killed when a passenger train crashed in the town of Veligonda in the then Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana) state. In 2002 September 121 people died when a Kolkata-to-Delhi train derailed south of Patna and plunged into a river. In 1999 August, 285 people were killed in a train accident in West Bengal. In West Bengal in August 1995, 350 people were killed when two trains collided. In 1981 India’s deadliest train accident happened. About 800 people died when a train running over the Bagmati river bridge from Nepal to Bihar fell into the river.