Death toll in Odisha train crash rises as unclaimed bodies ‘to be embalmed’ – live

The death toll in the Odisha train crash has been revised to 278, adding three more deaths among people who succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

Rinkesh Ray, an Eastern Central Railways official, said on Monday that apart from 278 deaths, 1,100 people were injured in the 1 June crash.

The death toll was first revised to much lower from the initial 288, after the state government officials said some bodies were counted twice.

The state government’s figure however still stood at 275 on Tuesday morning.

It comes as witnesses and political leaders questioned the official death toll, raising doubts over whether it was being kept artificially low given the sheer number of those critically injured.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also a former railways minister, said 61 people from her state alone have died and 182 others are still missing.

Mr Ray said out of 278 bodies, 177 have been identified and 101 unidentified have been kept in six different hospitals.

Victims’ family members look at photographs at the emergency ward to identify dead bodies, in the Fakir Mohan Medical College and Hospital.

Hospital staff carry a victim’s coffin who died in the carriage wreckage from AIIMS Bhubneshwar.

Volunteers display victims’ photographs to help family members identify dead bodies at the help desk in hospital.

Anil Marandi sobs while he searches for his three family members among the identified bodies.

A rescue worker walks past victims’ bodies at a business park used as temporary mortuary to identify the dead recovered from the carriage wreckage.

A top railway official has said 101 dead bodies are yet to be identified and out of 1,100 injured people, 200 are currently in hospitals.

Divisional Railway Manager of the Eastern Central Railways Rinkesh Roy told ANI that 900 people were discharged from hospitals.

“Out of 278 people who died in the accident, 101 bodies are yet to be identified,” he said.

Vijay Amrit Kulange, Commissioner, of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation told ANI, that they had 193 dead bodies, out of which 80 have been identified.

He said 55 bodies have been handed over to the relatives so far.

The BMC helpline 1929 received more than 200 calls and they are still in the process of identification of dead bodies and handing them over to relatives.

It has been more than three days since India witnessed one of the deadliest train crashes in the country’s history, but anguished and increasingly frustrated families are still running between hospitals and makeshift mortuaries in Odisha to try and find their loved ones.

Authorities began a formal investigation on Monday and said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s equivalent of the FBI, will look into whether criminal charges should be brought over the three-train crash that killed at least 275 passengers, though there is mounting concern in Odisha that the actual death toll may prove to be considerably higher.

It’s a reflection of growing distrust in the official response to Friday night’s disaster, with upwards of 100 bodies still unidentified and unclaimed at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in Odisha’s capital city Bhubaneswar.

Kalipada Maity from West Bengal has been searching for his brother, who worked as a daily-wage labourer, since Friday. “We have gone to every hospital and mortuary across the state of Odisha. He is nowhere to be found,” Mr Maitey tells The Independent.

Read Alisha Rahaman Sarkar’s ground report.

In a briefing on Wednesday, a US State Department spokesperson said they are monitoring the Odisha train crash closely and no US citizen was injured or killed in the accident.

“We are not at this time aware of any US citizen injured or killed in the train crash in Odisha, India,” said Vedant Patel.

“We’re monitoring the situation closely and are in touch with local authorities. We strongly encourage US citizens in India to continue to monitor local news, follow the emergency instructions provided by local authorities, and of course enroll in our Smart Traveler Program to receive any additional updates.”

It comes after Joe Biden joined other world leaders to express condolences over the tragic train crash.

“(First Lady Dr) Jill (Biden) and I are heartbroken by the tragic news of the deadly train crash in India. Our prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones and the many who suffered injuries in this terrible incident,” he said in a statement.

“The United States and India share deep bonds rooted in the ties of family and culture that unite our two nations — and people all across America mourn alongside the people of India. As the recovery effort continues, we will hold the people of India in our thoughts”.

Top railway officials suspect deliberate tempering with the electronic signalling system that is otherwise considered to be “fail-proof”, according to a report citing anonymous sources.

It comes as the probe into the devastating train accident has been handed to India’s Central Bureau of Investigations, which will look into whether the derailment was caused by criminal negligence or sabotage.

Sources told the Times of India that an initial investigation has suggested some sort of “manual tinkering” by someone with the interlocking system at the Bahanaga Bazar station which oversees signalling on the stretch.

The electronic interlocking system prevents multiple trains from using or heading towards the same tracks, and is supposed to be “fail-proof”, meaning if the system fails all the signals on the track would go red to halt the movements of all trains on the impacted line.

“So, unless there is deliberate interference in the system, it is not possible that a route that is set for the main line for a train is switched to the loop line,” the official said.

AIIMS hospital in the Odisha capital Bhubaneswar has begun the process of embalming process dead bodies from Friday’s train accident, as the identification of victims is expected to take longer with some cases where multiple families are claiming one body.

More than 12 anatomy and forensic experts from nearby states have been called to begin the process to preserve the bodies for longer, reported the Indian Express.

Even though the embalming process is normally done as soon as possible after death, the decision has been made now to preserve the unclaimed bodies from Friday’s crash until they can be handed to their next of kin, Prabhas Ranjan Tripathy, a faculty member in the anatomy department at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, told the newspaper.

He said the bodies were first kept in a local school before they were shifted to the mortuary of the hospital as no hospital near the accident site was equipped to handle such a large number of casualties.

The hospital officials said some bodies are unrecognisable due to the accident and decomposition and there have been cases where one body was claimed by more than one family.

The officials are using face recognition technology to match the bodies with data in the telecom database to identify the bodies.

Gura Pallay was watching another train pass by the one he was sitting in when he heard sudden, loud screeching. Before he could make sense of what was happening, he was thrown out of the train.

Pallay, 24, landed next to the tracks along with metal wreckage of the train he’d been riding in, and instantly lost consciousness. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the twisted remains of three trains on the tracks.

His train had derailed after colliding with a stopped freight train. Another passenger train, the one he had seen pass by moments earlier, had hit the derailed carriages.

“I saw it with my own eyes, but I still can’t describe what I saw. I am haunted by it,” he said Sunday at a hospital, where he lay on a stretcher with a broken leg and dark wounds on his face and arms.

Pallay is a laborer, like most of the people onboard the two passenger trains that crashed Friday in the eastern Odisha state, killing 275 people and injuring hundreds. He was traveling to Chennai city in southern India to take up a job in a paper mill factory when the Coromandel Express crashed with a goods freight train, knocking it off track, and was then hit by a second train coming from the opposite direction on a parallel track.

“I never imagined something like this could happen, but I guess it was our fate,” he said.

Passengers aboard a train in eastern India on Monday watched from their windows as they passed the site of one of the country’s deadliest rail crashes in decades.

The derailment that killed 275 people and injured nearly 1,200 more was caused by an error in the electronic signalling system that led a train to wrongly change tracks and crash into a freight train, officials said Sunday.

Authorities worked to clear the mangled wreckage of the two passenger trains that derailed Friday night in Balasore district in Odisha state.

The King has sent a message of condolence to the president of India after the country’s deadliest rail disaster in decades.

Nearly 300 people died and more than 1,000 were injured when three trains collided on Friday in the state of Odisha.

Charles, who travelled to Romania last week for a private break, said he and the Queen were “most profoundly shocked and saddened” by the “dreadful accident” outside Balasore.

The King added: “I would like to express our deepest possible condolences to the families of all those who have so tragically lost their lives.”

He recalled visiting Odisha as Prince of Wales, saying: “I do hope you know what a special place India and the people of India have in our hearts.

“I have particularly fond memories of visiting Odisha in 1980 and meeting some of its people on that occasion.”

The King, who signed his message Charles R, told President Droupadi Murmu: “I pray, therefore, that you may be able to convey our most heartfelt prayers and sympathy to all those who have been affected by this appalling tragedy, together with our special thoughts for the people of Odisha.”