The Janata Express, a passenger train that travels between Dehradun and Varanasi in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was flung off its rails near the village of Bachhrawan; the engine and two railcars came off and toppled over due to poor maintenance, killing at least 34, officials at the scene said. Several dozen others were injured as well.
Following the event, rescue workers used gas cutters to tear open the wreckage in order to pull out bodies and look for any survivors. In a statement to New Delhi Television, officials explained that one of the derailed cars was utterly destroyed by the impact, while the other was partially protected by a guard compartment that was likely to have been empty.
The driver of the Janata Express escaped unharmed and is being questioned by authorities to determine if it was human error that caused the incident.
India has a storied history with railway accidents. A correspondent for the BBC noted that the Indian government has not invested nearly enough time or energy to maintain and rebuild its vast railway network, and neglect and subsidized ticket prices have compounded the problem.
This February, the Ernakulam Intercity Express also derailed due to a defect in the track, killing nine and leaving 19 seriously injured. 2014 had quite a number of railway accidents in India, as well. Last May, a train decoupled from its tracks in the same state of the Janata Express, Uttar Pradesh, and crashed into a stationary goods store near the tracks. The incident resulted in worse property damage than that of the Janata Express crash, with six railcars coming off the rails. 15 passengers died on site while another 10 died in the hospital, and over a 100 had minor injuries.
India’s railway system consists of 89,236 miles of track and transports over eight billion passengers annually. It is run under Indian Railways, a government run company operated by the Ministry of Railways. A new railway budget was announced last month in the hope of alleviating some of India’s railway problems, with the Indian government planning to invest US$137 billion to repair the railway network.
