Cause of crash identified, CBI should investigate: Vaishnaw

Sabotage angle can't be ruled out, says minister; death toll revised to 275; one of the affected lines repaired, say officials

- Debabrata Mohanty and Neha LM Tripathi

The Railway Board has sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the train accident in Odisha’s Balasore that killed 275 people and injured nearly 1,100, Union railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Sunday evening and suggested that authorities were looking into a possible sabotage attempt, even as officials on the ground bulldozed capsized coaches, relaid tracks, and installed fresh overhead lines in an attempt to restore operations on the impacted line.

Earlier in the day, Vaishnaw said the cause of the accident, the fourth-worst on India’s extensive railway network, was a change in the interlocking and point machine, an intricate system of interconnected safety checks designed to keep trains from crossing each other’s paths.

Healthcare workers in the region, meanwhile, grappled with a herculean task, with hundreds of injured occupying hospital beds, even as families pored through lists and photographs to identify dead bodies, many of which were disfigured beyond recognition.

“We have recommended a CBI probe into the triple-train accident,” Vaishnaw said in Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar on Sunday evening, amid pushback from Opposition groups, many of whom sought his ouster as minister.

The Chennai-bound Coromandel Express rammed into a goods train, bearing iron ore, at the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore around 6.56pm on Friday, the impact of the collision flinging several compartments into the adjacent track. A few of these coaches hit the last two cars of the Howrah-bound Yesvantpur Express, which was passing by on the opposite line at the same time.

The death toll on Saturday evening was believed to be 294, but senior Odisha officials on Sunday clarified that the number had been revised to 275 after accounting for repetitions.