An 18-year-old student was killed while nine persons, including two women and a railway guard, were injured when six coaches of a local train derailed after getting uncoupled from the rest of the train at Titwala, 60 km from here, on Thursday.
The train service between Kalyan and Kasara came to a grinding halt. Services were expected to be restored by late night on Thursday. According to sources in the police, the train derailed near pole 62/7 between Titwala and Ambivali railway stations on the central line.
“The accident took place at 2.50 pm. The coupling of the coaches was broken. Even the tracks at the accident site were found uprooted,” a senior railway police official told The Hindu . The train had left Kasara for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus at 1.32 p.m.
Friends of Dhawal Mayur Lodaya, the deceased, meanwhile, blamed negligence on part of the authorities for his death. Dhawal recently gave his Standard XII examination and had gone to visit a temple in Asangaon with three of his friends.
“We were returning from the temple when the accident took place. Our vacation turned tragic with his death,” Jay Lodaria (20), told The Hindu . Medical help, he said, reached them more than one-and-a-half hours after the accident. “Due to the impact of the accident, Dhawal was thrown out of the train. He was conscious when we jumped out of the train for his help. But no help arrived for an hour-and-a-half. If the ambulance would have arrived in time, we could have saved our friend.”
