Stationmasters blamed for train disaster

Two stationmasters and an engineer face criminal charges today after a head-on train crash that killed at least 37 people in northern India was blamed on a communications blunder.

Railway spokesman MY Siddiqui said the death toll could climb further because some of the 40 injured passengers were in a serious condition at two nearby hospitals.

An express passenger train and a local train collided yesterday in a rural stretch of northern Punjab state, killing both drivers and 35 other people aboard the trains. Rescuers had recovered all bodies by today and the tracks were cleared for traffic to resume, Siddiqui said.

A “communications snag” between stationmasters apparently caused the crash, with the trains allowed to travel towards each other on the same track, said the area’s top railway official, Dharam Singh.

“I don’t consider it an accident. It is nothing less than a brutal murder,” said federal railways minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, speaking through a megaphone in front of the wreckage.

The two stationmasters, as well as an engineer, have been sacked and faced criminal charges of culpable homicide, Yadav said.

The crash highlighted problems with India’s huge, creaking train network, often criticised for poor safety standards. In June, 14 people died when a high-speed train derailed after hitting boulders on the track in western Maharashtra state.

Accidents are common in India’s state-run railways, which operates 7,000 passenger trains a day.

The sprawling network is 67,000 miles long – the world’s third-largest after Russia and China.

Most of the dead in yesterday’s crash were on the local train, which apparently could not stop in time because it had been negotiating a curve.

“I felt a violent jerk, and the next moment I realised everybody was jumping out to save their lives.

"As we came out we saw the passenger train engine on fire and twisted pieces of iron all around,” express train passenger Neeta Mohindroo told the Press Trust of India news agency.

The express train was travelling from the Kashmir winter capital Jammu to Ahmadabad in western Gujarat state. The local train was travelling between the cities of Jalandhar and Pathankot.

The trains slammed into each other among wheat fields outside Khanpur village, about 180 miles north-west of New Delhi.