Naxal terror: 80 train passengers killed

Jhargram: The derailment of Howrah-Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express by suspected Maoists at about 0130 hrs IST on Friday left at least 80 passengers dead and over 200 injured. The Mumbai-bound train derailed when it was running between Khemasoli and Sardiya stations, about 150 km from Kolkata.

Five of the 13 derailed coaches fell on an adjacent track and were hit by a goods train coming from the opposite direction, Additional Superintendent of Police, Jhargram, Mukesh Kumar said.

The accident site is littered with the mangled heaps of bogies, passengers in bandages and plasters and a row of hearse vans lined up.

Belongings of passengers including suitcases, bags and shoes were strewn around as ladders and cranes were being deployed to take out the survivors and clear the tracks at Guptamoni.

Many passengers were seen in bandages or plasters, sitting huddled with whatever was left of their belongings, waiting to be evacuated, while some others were seen weeping inconsolably as bodies were brought out of the crushed bogies.

A lady trapped waist down was pulled out after a 12-hour ordeal. She was given a saline drip while still trapped inside the bogie with the saline pouch hanging from the overhead rod.

Passengers recounted the horror of the derailment and thanked God for bringing them out of the bogies alive.

"We were 10 people in the compartment. Four of us have escaped while six are still stuck inside. The incident took place when we were sleeping. We heard a loud blast. We ran from our seat but were unable to get out. I was hanging onto a rod," said a passenger.

"We saw the train tumble over. I asked them (rescuers) to save my kids. Then he pulled us out of the window," said another passenger.

"My brother is still trapped inside. We were in S-4. We fell when the train derailed. Many people died," added another.

Debashsis Naskar, a goldsmith from North 24 Parganas working in Mumbai wept uncontrollably as he had lost his father, elder brother, sister-in-law, younger brother and niece in the tragedy.

Mamoni Begum, a young woman also from North 24 Parganas, frantically searched for her six year-old daughter with whom she was travelling to Mumbai to meet her husband.

Passengers recounted the harrowing experience saying they were thrown off their seats as the goods train coming from the other direction rammed into the coaches which had overturned on the down line.

In Mumbai relatives of passengers travelling in the ill-fated train were frantically trying to get in touch with their loved ones.

The Gazi family in Mumbai came to know that their children may not have survived the accident as 10-year-old Meena and eight-year-old Rakhibul travelling on the train are feared dead. They were with their father Wahid Ali who has been badly injured.

Waiting at the Kurla station in Mumbai, the family has been hoping that the two children may have survived.

Wahid's brother Saif was given a special pass by the railways to travel along with Wahid's wife to Howrah.

At the station Saurav Datta waited anxiously for over 12 hours for any information about his father Kalyan Datta, who was on Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express.

"My name is Saurav Datta. My father was in the train. On seat No. 41, S3. If you get any information please call me on 91-9820251776," appealed Saurav.

At the accident site rescue workers were trying to enter some of the overturned bogies using gas-cutters and those who managed to come out on their own squatted along the tracks nursing their wounds.

CRPF and army personnel assisted by a sniffer dog and donned in masks and helmets used gas cutters to carry out the rescue operations.

Five coaches, S-4 to S-8, were the most badly hit with coach-9 having telescoped into the one ahead of it. Four wagons of the goods train also derailed.

"It was pitch dark and I don't remember what happened thereafter. When I regained my sense, I somehow managed to scramble out of the coach through the emergency window," a passenger Ajay Gupta, said.

Jagabandhu Sardar, in his late forties, said he was in S-6, one of the worst affected bogies, with his wife and three daughters. "All of us have escaped death though some of us have suffered injuries".

Food was being distributed among the passengers, who waited in the open in the hot summer sun. A water tanker too was kept at the site to provide drinking water.

National Disaster Rescue Force personnel from Kolkata were rushed in to help in rescue operations.

(With inputs from PTI and CNN-IBN)