How the train crash in eastern India unfolded

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newspotted
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How the train crash in eastern India unfolded

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By Adolfo Arranz, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa and Anand Katakam
PUBLISHED JUNE 14, 2023

On the evening of June 2, the Coromandel Express passenger train was moving at 128 kph (80 mph), heading for the southern city of Chennai, when it approached Bahanaga Bazar station in the eastern Indian state of Odisha.

What followed was India’s deadliest rail crash in more than two decades as the train careened into a stationary goods train resulting in a three train collision and derailment killing 288 people and injuring more than a thousand.

Reuters analysed drone footage, carriage layouts and schematics to show how the cheapest and most crowded carriages bore the brunt of the impact of the crash in the Balasore district of Odisha. An Indian Railways spokesman confirmed that the cheapest carriages were among the worst affected by the disaster.

In their first detailed briefing on the crash on June 4, Indian Railways officials said investigators were focusing on the failure of the track management system.

The computer-controlled track management system, called the “interlocking system”, normally directs trains to an empty track at the point where two tracks meet, Sandeep Mathur, principal executive director for signalling for the Indian Railways, told reporters.

On June 11, Reuters reported that an official probe by the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) is focusing on suspected manual bypassing of an automated signalling system that guides train movement, three Indian Railways sources told Reuters.

CRS investigators suspect the bypass was done by railway workers to get around signalling hurdles that arose from a malfunctioning barrier used to stop road traffic at a nearby rail-road intersection, two of the three sources said.

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