Several villages in Raebareli, Pratapgarh and Amethi districts are in a state of mourning as most of those killed in Friday’s Janata Express rail accident were from these areas.
A total of 38 people were killed in the accident.
Traffic on the Lucknow-Raebareli section of the Northern Railway was restored on Saturday after tracks were repaired and debris were removed, according to the Railway officials here.
Since the ill-fated train was scheduled to terminate at Varanasi, about 250 kilometres from Bacharawan where the mishap occurred, a majority of the passengers were residents of Raebareli, Pratapgarh and Amethi districts.
Ram Sajivan of Ajgara village in Pratapgarh lost her three-year-old grand-daughter while her daughter-in-law and two other members of the family were in serious condition.
Similarly Lalta Prasad of Pure Majra village in Amethi district his father Shyamlal. “My father was on way home from Hardwar,” he said.
Amethi is barely an hour’s journey from Bacharawan, the accident spot.
The postmortem centre at Raebareli was crowded with kin of the deceased. They said oficials made them run from pillar to post to get information about their loved ones.
“Both the police and the officials at the mortuary failed to give me any information about my uncle, who was killed in the mishap,” said Rajaram, a resident of Amethi district. Maya Devi, a resident of Udhamsingh Nagar district in the neighbouring Uttarakhand, lost four members of her family. “My sister Saroj Devi, her husband and their daughter perished in the mishap,” she said.
Maya Devi’s daughter Madhu also lost her life in the tragedy. All of them were on their way to Varanasi to have Saroj Devi treated for cancer.
Meanwhile, Railway officials here said that the derailment might have been caused by high speed. They said that the probe team was likely to reach the mishap site on Monday.
“The train’s speed was around 60 km per hour...it should have 15-20 km per hour,” said an official, though he added that the exact cause of the mishap could be ascertained only after the inquiry.
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