Bhubaneswar: One year after the triple-train crash at Bahanaga in Odisha’s Balasore, the horrific scenes and memories of the tragedy continue to haunt the survivors and locals.
While 296 passengers lost their lives, over 1000 others were injured after Coromandel Express collided with a stationary goods train at Bahanaga Bazar station on June 2, last year. Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express then hit some of the derailed coaches
Memories of the mishap are still fresh in the minds of the passengers who survived and those who lost their loved ones. They are yet to come to terms with life.
Local residents as well as those who had taken part in the rescue operation say they would not be able to forget the gory scenes in their life. Doctors and nurses who attended the victims find no words to describe the tragic incident.
“I will never be able to forget the day in which the Bahanaga train mishap took place. The lives of several families changed as many them lost their loved ones. We did not have time to think while providing medical aid to the injured,” Poonam Sabu, a nurse at Soro hospital, told a local channel.
Similar was the experience of Deepak, who played a major role in the rescue operation after the tragic accident. He said most of the passengers whom he rescued are safe.
Stating that many like him volunteered to help the administration in the hour of crisis, he said that the officials also allowed locals to chip in during the massive rescue operation after the devastating mishap.
Though one year has elapsed since the tragedy, many are still waiting for the dear ones who were travelling in the train. For Mafoja Bibi of a village in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, the search for her mason husband Sk Zamalludin still continues.
Jamaluddin (37) was part of an 11-member team which had boarded the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express which collided with a goods train at Bahanaga Bazar station, according an TNIE report
Majofa says her uncle, brother-in-law and other relatives searched the spot at Bahanaga, hospitals and temporary mortuaries but there was no trace of her husband’s body. His father provided the DNA sample but it did not match with the stored bodies
Even the ex-gratia promised by the Ministry of Railways and the West Bengal government eludes her as the body of Zamalludin is deemed ‘untraceable.’ From the 11 of the group, only one survived the mishap. Eight deceased passengers could be identified while two, including Zamaluddin, are still missing.
Similar is the story of Sanju Devi (55) of Misraulia village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, who gets inconsolable recounting days she spent searching for her only son’s body at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar where the 81 bodies were kept for identification post the tragedy.
Stating that they had identified the body at AIIMS and submitted the required documents, she said another person came and claimed it to be his son. “We provided our DNA samples and waited for at least a month. The officials said the samples did not match and refused to hand over the body,” she was quoted as saying.
Many families were able to identify and cremate or bury their loved ones but for some like Sanju Devi, the search was like a bottomless pit.
Official sources said that the Odisha government had to cremate 28 unclaimed bodies nearly four months after the incident as the DNA samples of claimants did not match. Out of over 150 DNA samples collected from the victims’ families, samples of 44 claimants did not match, depriving their kin of the ex-gratia and compensation package provided by the Ministry of Railways and the governments of their respective states.
Experts say since the bodies were received after more than 30 hours of their death – some after 48 hours – it was a herculean task for forensic labs to conduct DNA sequencing and profiling due to the poor quality of samples
