Odisha Train Crash: Demolition Of School Doubling Up As Morgue Begins

Balasore: Demolition of a 65-year-old state-run school, which was turned into a temporary mortuary with bodies of around 250 passengers who lost their lives in Odisha triple-train clash stored in it, began on Friday morning.

The process at Bahanaga Nodal High School in Balasore district is being carried out in the presence of school managing committee members and Works Department authorities. New classrooms will be constructed there, sources said.

Students and teachers had expressed reluctance to attend classes in the school, where classrooms and the hall were used to line up the bodies, many of them disfigured, with memories of nightmarish experience of the tragedy deeply entrenched in their mind. The authorities feared that the school might see zero attendance once it reopened after summer vacation.

During his visit to the educational institution on Thursday, Balasore Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde had said that the school managing committee will taken a decision on whether to demolition the particular old building with asbestos roof amid fear among people that it might be haunted.

He, however, appealed to all not to spread fear and superstition, suggesting that efforts should instead be made to inculcate a scientific temper in the young, impressionable minds.

Plans are also afoot to arrange expert counselling for the students and teachers, school education secretary S Aswathy said.

Notably, bodies of Bahanaga Bazar train accident victims were shifted to the school immediately after being retrieved from the mangled coaches. Those were later were relocated to a spacious building on the outskirts of Balasore town. Later the unidentified corpses were shifted to morgues in Bhubaneswar-based hospitals.