Following the horrific train accident in Odisha involving the Bangalore-Howrah Superfast express, railway officials here said on Saturday that according to the latest available information, no one from the reserved carriages was injured or killed, while few passengers from the General Seating carriage (GS) had some injuries.
The overturned GS and SLRD (Brake Van) wagons are still being restored and salvage work is ongoing, they said.
At least 238 people were killed and more than 900 injured in the accident in Odisha’s Balasore district on Friday involving the Bangalore-Howrah Superfast Express, the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a freight train.
South Western Railways (SWR) officials said an estimated 994 booked and around 300 unreserved passengers boarded the Bangalore-Howrah Superfast Express from the Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminal (SMVB) in the city.
2 carriages GS and Brake Van of the express train departing from SMVB are known to have derailed, they said, “As they were unreserved carriages, it will take some time to determine the identity of the passengers. In the reserved carriages, the details of the passengers, including the contact details are available in the database as they were recorded during the ticket reservation”.
As more updates are received, more details will be shared with the public, they added.
According to an available update from Balasore, authorities said the unaffected part of the train with passengers left for its destination: Howrah.
“The unaffected part of Tr.No.12864 (engine plus 20 wagons) was made fit to run with a speed restriction of 10 kmph at 0058hrs and the rake reached Balasore at 0342hrs,” the update said. .
After separating the damaged carriage from the rake in Balasore, the remaining 19 carriages with passengers on board left Balasore at 05:08 am and continued their journey towards Howrah, the destination of the express train, with a speed restriction of 40 km/ h, depending on the update.
(Only the headline and image in this report may have been modified by Business Standard staff; all other content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)