Bihar tragedy: Officials' inertia questioned

Thirty-seven people died on Monday, when a train travelling at 80 kmph ran over them in the Khagaria district in Bihar. The unfortunate incident is the second tragedy of its kind in less than a year. In the midst of it, the Nitish administration was caught napping yet again.

Even though the chief minister assured all possible assistance in carrying out relief and rescue operations, by the time his mandarins reached the scene of the accident, the villagers had already rushed the critically injured to hospitals in boats.

It is understood that the last Monday of the Shravan month would witness a huge rush of pilgrims at the much-revered Kalyani temple. However, the Nitish regime had failed to devise a composite plan to handle the crowd.  It is as though no lessons were learnt from November’s tragedy, last year during the Chhath festival, which saw the death of 17 people from a stampede after the collapse of a makeshift wooden bridge in Adalatganj Ghat, Patna.

The railways remain accountable as the train was not proactively halted at Dhamara Ghat by the station master. Pilgrims had alighted from passenger trains and took the obvious route to the temple, along track number two, which railway authorities should have foreseen.

Ministry clueless

The Railway Ministry remained clueless over the accident in Bihar. Officials on Monday tried to assert that the people were at fault for crossing the track.

None of them were ready to answer as to why the speed of the train was very high even as it was passing through a station and why no announcement was made that a express train was passing through. “The station is a ‘D’ category station and I do not think arrangement of announcement should be there,” said an official. He said that when people were to gather in such a big number, the state government should have made arrangements and informed the railway authorities.