Bihar accounts for heavy casualties

Five persons from Bihar were killed when the Indore-Patna express train derailed in Kanpur on Sunday. They have been identified as Mala Devi, Suresh Kumar, Ratnika, Shreya and Shiv Kumar Yadav.

Railway officials said 173 passengers from Bihar were in the sleeper and AC coaches of the train. Hundreds more from the State were in the general compartments.

Anxious relatives gathered at the Patna Junction station for information. The State government opened a help desk and announced a compensation of Rs. 2 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to the kin of each of the dead and Rs. 50,000 to each of the seriously injured from Bihar. A relief train left here for Indore later in the afternoon with the relatives of the injured. The train is expected to bring back stranded passengers around midnight, railway officials said.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who postponed an official function to release the annual report card of the grand alliance government, sent a three-member official team to Kanpur to provide help and relief.

Kunal Kapoor from Patna city had no information about seven of his family members who were in the train. Ritesh Kumar is searching for his uncle Bhagwan Singh who was travelling in the B-3 coach. Similarly, Rakesh Kumar Sah is trying to find his relative Manoj Kumar Sah, who was in the S-1 coach. “Here only helpline numbers have been provided, but no arrangement has been made to reach the spot,” said Radhakant Tiwari, whose elder brother Ramakant Tiwari was in the train. “All of a sudden, at 3.10 in the morning I was thrown off my berth,” said Vikas Kumar, a passenger from Bhojpur district. “There was a lot of screaming from other compartments … it was pitch dark outside and I realised the train had derailed. I am lucky to have come out alive.” Mr. Kumar, who works as a probationary officer in a bank in Indore, was in the A-1 coach. He was going to his village in Bhojpur to attend a marriage.

“Most casualties were in the sleeper and general coaches which were packed because of the wedding season,” he said.