It's sheer luck they are alive

The early morning train accident near Anekal left nine families devastated, while many families had reasons to believe that they were lucky.

An 11-member family from Ernakulam, waiting for transportation at the Anekal government hospital after the accident, had a mixed feeling about the tragedy.

Devasia (75) and his wife Rosamma (70) had come to Bengaluru last week for their grandson's wedding. The couple had come along with nine other family members, including four children. The wedding was on Thursday and the family boarded the train back to Ernakulam on Friday morning from the City Railway station.

Karun Jacob Thomas, the newlywed software engineer who works at ITPL, had just returned from the railway station on Friday, when he got a call at around 7.50 am. “I returned to my house at BTM Layout 1st stage when I got the call from my uncle Baby Sebastin saying the train had met with an accident. They were not sure about the spot or how far it was from the City. The tickets were not confirmed. However, the Travelling Ticket Examiner asked them to wait at D-8. Just before the departure, the occupants of the seats arrived and my family moved to a different coach,” Karun said.

One of the family members said they were either in D-6 or D-7 when the mishap took place and the bogie overturned within no time. “There was a huge sound and smoke everywhere before the train suddenly stopped. As though some earthquake happened, the bogies tilted to one side and people started crying out for help,” Rosamma’s daughter said.

Karun explained that his uncle Baby Sebastin found one rear door open. “He jumped out of the door and shifted the other family members one by one. They also helped others in the bogies adjacent to D-8 and D-7 to come out. However, nothing could be done about passengers inside D-8,” he said.

Though he felt lucky, Karuna said he was disappointed with the approach of the Railways. The authorities have asked him to buy another ticket to continue the journey.

“The railway authorities kept asking us to go to the Bengaluru City Railway Station and catch a train. I showed them the tickets we had bought but they did not help us. Later, Kerala Transport Minister Aryadan Mohammed came and assured us a transportation in a state bus,” he said.

Lucky 11

Coach D-8 has a capacity of 108 passengers. However, it had 94 passengers in it for the Friday journey. A railway official said that 11 more passengers were allotted seats in D-8 coach from Hosur. The train met with accident about 14 km before Hosur station and the 11 passengers couldn’t board the train.

Natural walls

The spot at which the train got derailed, between Bidarigere Dinne and Agrahara, has a natural wall on either side for about two km. A villager said that the casualties would have been more had the train derailed a kilometer ahead.

“There is a bridge immediately after this spot on the stretch. The area is also an elephant corridor and occasionally herds would cross the track. Because of the walls on both sides, the bogies didn’t overturn. The walls prevented further tilting of the bogies and a major accident was averted,” Ramanna, a local villager, said.

Villagers help

The villagers around Bidarigere were thanked by the passengers of the train. One of the passengers said it was local villagers who rushed to the rescue within 15 minutes of the accident. “Though it was impossible for anyone to rescue a few passengers from coach D-8, the villagers extended the helping hand to every passenger of the train. Some villagers immediately called up the jurisdictional police to alert them to the accident,” a passenger said.

Krishnappa, a resident of Karpura village near Bidarigere, said the local panchayat office-bearers also rushed to the help of the passengers. “Hundreds of villagers gathered at the spot and tried to rescue the passengers in D-8 coach. Unfortunately, we couldn’t pull them out of the mangled coach. I called up the taluk panchayat president Omkar who immediately informed the officials.”