Ten persons were injured after a portion of a road over bridge (ROB) of the East Central Railway (ECR) collapsed on a running goods train in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district on Wednesday afternoon.
No deaths were reported in the incident. The injured were rushed to the district hospital and were declared out of danger, Amitabh Prabhakar, ECR’s chief public relations officer told The Hindu.
The incident took place at Madipur around 1.35 p.m. The injured persons were travelling in autos on the ROB, when it caved in on a goods train passing underneath. Owing to the impact of the collapse, two coaches of the train derailed and five were damaged.
According to some eyewitnesses, the train hit one of the pillars of the bridge, Mr. Prabhakar said.
Train services along the route were severely affected with several trains being either cancelled, terminated or diverted. Debris clearing operations which began on Wednesday are expected to last until Thursday. Railway authorities said services would resume in 24 hours after the completion of the clearing operations.
The Delhi-Muzaffarpur Sadbhavana Express was terminated ahead of its destination in Chapra, Saran district, and will leave for Delhi the next day from Chapra itself.
The Madipur ROB, constructed between 1966 and 1969, is the oldest of the three ROBs in the district. It begins from a railway yard and crosses the heart of the thickly-populated Muzaffarpur town. The rail route is also a key passage for the movement of a large number of trains.
