Traumatised and eager to reach home, 165 surviving passengers of the ill-fated Howrah-Delhi Kalka Mail arrived at the Old Delhi railway station around 5-30 a.m. on Monday, almost 10 hours after leaving the accident site on Sunday night.
According to Northern Railway, 32 passengers were attended to at the medical camp set up on platform no.12 where the special train rolled in. Most of the passengers complained of aches and minor injuries with no serious health complaints. They were discharged after first-aid treatment which included administering painkillers, injections and dressing. Only one woman passenger named Kazila was referred to the Trauma Centre at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here for suspected fracture, according to doctors present at the camp.
About 10 passengers were also provided first-aid at the Ghaziabad railway station where the train halted before arriving at the Old Delhi railway station. The train departed for Kalka at 6.25 a.m.
Several passengers recounted their miraculous survival to anxiously waiting relatives at the platform.
Dilip told a news agency that he was thankful to God for keeping him alive. “If I am talking today, it is only because of the Almighty.”
Dilip along with three other people was travelling in the general compartment of the Delhi-bound train when the accident took place. He banged his head against the coach window.
A traumatised five-year-old boy Samar also arrived at the station along with his parents after surviving the tragedy. “I was very scared,” he told waiting reporters at the station.
According to his parents, Samar was sleeping inside S-9 coach when the accident took place. He was woken up by his father who works in Faridabad. “We all came out through the emergency door and since then I am completely terrified,” his father said, adding that they reached Kanpur from the accident site by bus and boarded the special train to Delhi.
On his arrival here, Samar was administered a tetanus injection for his minor leg injury.
Arrangements
Dr. S.K. Gaddi, Chief of Medical Services at the Old Delhi Railway Station Hospital, said along with basic medical facilities, arrangement for wheelchairs and ambulances were also made at the camp in case they were required. “But basically the passengers only had minor injuries and were keen to leave for their homes or carry on their train journey to Kalka.”
Meanwhile, owing to the derailment, 17 trains were cancelled, five diverted and seven rescheduled on Monday. The rescheduled trains included the New Delhi-Sealdah Rajdhani, New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani and New Delhi-Rajinder Nagar Rajdhani. Services of 12 trains were restored on their normal route on Monday, according to the Northern Railway.
Joshi visits Malwan
Special Correspondent reports from Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh Governor B.L. Joshi on Monday visited Malwan and reviewed the relief and rehabilitation works in connection with the Kalka Mail derailment on Sunday. He went to the Hallet hospital in Kanpur and met those injured.
The death toll in the accident has gone up to 68 with 33 more bodies being extricated.
Special Director-General of Police (Law and Order) Brij Lal told journalists here that relief operations were over and all the bodies removed. Volunteers of the National Disaster Response Force and Army personnel, who were engaged in rescue operations, had left Malwan.
However, the onerous task of removing the derailed compartments was on, and it would take about 24 hours for the track to be cleared and normal traffic restored on the Kanpur-Fatehpur-Allahabad section of the North Central Railway.
The engine and 12 compartments of the Delhi-bound Kalka Mail jumped the track near the eastern cabin of Malwan railway station on Sunday noon.
Even as the exact cause of the accident and whether the driver applied the emergency brakes were yet to be ascertained, (Chief Commissioner, Railway Safety, is set to begin enquiry on Wednesday), rumours are afloat that some fish plates were found missing.
‘No fault on track'
It is also said that about 2 km before the derailment site, the engine of the Kalka Mail started shuddering. But, reports quoting senior railway officials said no fault was found on the track.
