Survivors of the Aurangabad train accident frantically raised alarm to alert their group members sleeping on tracks about a fast-approaching freight train, but it all went in vain as 16 of them were crushed to death at the crack of dawn on Friday.
Chilling details emerged about the tragedy involving a group of migrant workers who were on their way to native places in Madhya Pradesh on foot from Maharashtra and had taken a break to rest on rail tracks out of sheer fatigue.
The accident left 16 migrant workers dead and one injured while three others survived. All of them were working in a steel manufacturing in Jalna, a district adjoining Aurangabad in central Maharashtra, and were heading home in the amidst of coronavirus-enforced lockdown, officials said.
It all happened in a flash of a second, says Virendra Singh Gaur, one of the survivors of the Aurangabad train run over incident involving migrants.
He worked in a private MSME in Jalna, that is now shut because of the COVID-19 India lockdown.
"I was worried about my wife, kids and parents back home," says Virendra, who hails form Mamen village in Umaria district of Shadol division of Madhya Pradesh.
"We started at 7 pm last evening, we kept on walking along the road and then tracks," he said, adding that they wanted to go to Bhusawal and then move towards their home state.
"We were tired, it was around 4 am when we decided to take some rest," he said, adding that while he and a colleague were a bit behind, others were ahead.
"While resting, we saw the train coming...they were sitting along the rails we shouted to alert them, we ran towards them but the train just passed like a flash," he said.
The survivors were identified as Inderlal Dhurve (20 district Mandla), Virendrasingh Gaur (27, district Umaria) and Shivman Singh Gaur (27, district Shahdol) and the injured Sajjan Singh (resident of Khajeri district).
A video clip from the scene of the tragedy showed the mutilated bodies of migrant workers lying on the tracks and nearby with their meagre personal belongings scattered around.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena leader and state minister Sandipan Bhumre and Member of Legislative Assembly Ambadas Danve visited the Government Medical College and Hospital here and met the injured.
Danve said, "The state government is making efforts to send migrant workers to their home states. People should have patience."
The deceased includeed Dhansingh Gond, Nirlesh Singh Gond, Buddharaj Singh Gond, Rabendra Singh Gond, Rajbohram Paras Singh, Dharmendra Singh Gond, Shreedayal Singh Suresh Singh Kaul, Santosh Napit, Brijesh Bheyadin (all from Shahdol district), Bigendra Singh, Pradeep Singh Gond, Nemshah singh Munim singh (all Umaria district).
One of the deceased was identified as Acchelal Singh, but his native district was not yet known, police officials said, adding another vicitm was yet to be identified.
(With inputs from PTI)