MUMBAI: Rescuers and families searched through mangled train carriages on Sunday (Jun 4) for more victims of India’s worst rail crash in more than two decades with signal failure emerging as the likely cause.
At least 288 people were killed on Friday when a passenger train went off the tracks and hit another one near the district of Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha.
Five more bodies were brought to a school being used as a mortuary near the scene of the accident early on Sunday.
“We do not know how many more bodies will come,” a health worker said.
Indian Railways says it transports more than 13 million people every day. But the state-run monopoly has had a patchy safety record because of ageing infrastructure.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces an election due next year, visited the scene on Saturday to talk to rescue workers, inspect the wreckage and meet some of the nearly 1,200 injured.
The South Eastern Railway has said a preliminary report indicated that the accident was the result of signal failure.
Source: CNA
