India’s Deadliest Train Crash in 20 Years

A train crash in eastern India on Friday has resulted in the country’s worst railway disaster in two decades, with over 230 people killed. This tragic event brings up questions about rail safety in a country that recently invested heavily in the system after a history of deadly crashes.

238 confirmed fatalities

Officials reported that a passenger train derailed and hit two other trains in Odisha’s Balasore district. The state’s chief secretary, Pradeep Jena, stated on Saturday that 238 people had lost their lives in the collision, with 900 injuries reported. The death toll is anticipated to rise, given the ongoing rescue efforts.

The train operator, South Eastern Railway, said that the accident occurred when several of the train’s coaches derailed and hit a second train. Officials acknowledge that a third train, transporting freight, was also involved, but the details remain unclear.

One of the trains involved was the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express. This service connects the major cities along India’s east coast at a relatively high speed.

The derailment was near Balasore

The collision happened near Balasore, a city located near the coast in eastern Odisha (formerly Orissa), which is well-known for its ancient temples and its history as a 17th-century British port. The shoreline along the Bay of Bengal is prone to tropical cyclones, especially in October and November.

Balasore, located in the northeast part of the state, has a railway station but is many hours away from the nearest airport, located in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha. The daily temperatures were around 100 degrees Fahrenheit before the crash, hot even for May, typically the warmest time of the year.

The officials announced that all hospitals in the area were ready to help. A day of mourning was proclaimed in Odisha, home to 45 million people, and dozens of trains were canceled.

Derailments less frequent

India’s vast rail network is critical to Indian lives and livelihoods, particularly in more rural areas and the economy. According to a 2018 report published in the American Economic Review, almost all of India’s rail lines, 98 percent, were constructed between 1870 and 1930.

Derailments used to be frequent, averaging 475 per year between 1980 and around 2002. According to a paper presented at the World Congress on Disaster Management by railway officials, they have become less common, averaging slightly more than 50 each year for the previous decade until 2021.

In recent years, overall rail safety in India has improved, and the number of significant train accidents has steadily declined to 22 in the 2020 fiscal year from over 300 per year two decades ago. India achieved zero passenger deaths in accidents for two consecutive years reaching 2020, and the Modi government hailed it as an accomplishment—the first time since prior to 2017 that over 100 passengers had died each year.

However, fatal collisions have still happened. In 2016, over 140 sleeping passengers died, with 200 injured in northeast India in a crash of fourteen train coaches in the middle of the night. A “fracture” in the tracks was thought to be responsible. In southern India, a late-night derailment killed at least 36 passengers and injured 40 others in 2017.

Friday’s tragedy is the deadliest since a crash in 1999 in West Bengal that killed 285 individuals.

Modi prioritizes transport improvement

One of the reasons behind the enhanced safety has been the elimination of thousands of unmanned railway crossings, as indicated by Mr. Modi’s government, accomplished in 2019. The relatively low-level engineering work of constructing underpasses and increasing signal conductors has decreased crashes significantly.

Mr. Modi has increased attention to transportation infrastructure across the country, particularly to the railroads, which is among the most visible projects for ordinary citizens. He has inaugurated mid-range electric trains, and Mumbai is building a bullet train corridor on the west coast to link to Ahmedabad, following in the footsteps of a Japanese-style train.

The train systems and train accidents have significantly influenced the fortunes of Indian politicians. The railways minister portfolio has been highly sought after, given its high profile and influence on business and industry. Suresh Prabhu, credited with designing New Delhi’s world-class metro system, was compelled to resign from the position in September 2017 after a series of lesser accidents.

Within hours of Friday’s collision, opposition politicians were calling for the resignation of the current minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, even before he could arrive at the site. The fact that Mr. Vaishnaw is also the minister for electronics and information technology indicates that railways have become less important within India’s array of development projects. Nonetheless, railways can capture public attention far beyond any other promotion.