Tragedy unfolded on Friday, June 2, after a massive mishap involving three trains – the Coromandel Express, SMVT Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, and a goods train – at Balasore of Odisha. According to railway officials, 10-15 coaches of the Coromandel Express derailed after ramming into a goods train, and the Howrah Express, which was running four hours behind schedule, came in contact with the derailed coaches of the Coromandel Express, leading to one of the biggest rail accidents recorded in India in the last 42 years.
The accident has so far claimed 270 lives and left over 900 people injured. As we make sense of how this tragedy unfolded, here is a list of some of the biggest railway accidents from the past.
1964 Pamban bridge accident
On December 23, 1964, a deadly cyclone struck Tamil Nadu’s Rameswaram island, overturning the Pamban railway bridge which connects the island to the mainland. The Pamban-Dhanushkodi passenger train which was passing through the bridge toppled into the sea, killing around 200 passengers. The entire sea link, which was the first-ever sea bridge in India, and the longest until the opening of the Bandra-Worli sea link, was rebuilt post the tragic accident.
1981 Bihar train derailment
On June 6, 1981, a passenger train carrying more than 800 passengers derailed and plunged into river Bagmati while crossing a bridge. The passenger train was travelling between Mansi junction and Saharsa in Bihar. Although media reports claimed that the accident resulted in the death of 500 people, the Press Information Bureau clarified on June 12, 1981, that the death toll stood at 235. However, the Railway Minister, in his Parliament address, mentioned 270 known deaths and injuries to 125 persons.
1988 Perumon train accident
Nine coaches of the Bangalore-Trivandrum Island Express derailed and crashed as the train passed through the Perumon bridge over the Ashtamudi Lake in Kerala on July 8, 1988. The accident killed 105 people and a probe by the Railways concluded that a tornado that hit the area was the cause of the accident.
1995 Firozabad train collision
On August 20, 1985, the Kalindi Express and Purushottam Express bound for New Delhi rammed into each other near Firozabad. According to a CNN report from 1995, the Kalindi Express’s brakes were damaged after hitting a cow on the railway track, causing it to remain stationary. The Purushottam Express then rammed into the stationary train, killing 358 people and leaving several hundred injured. According to the Press Trust of India, the last three coaches of the Kalindi Express were completely destroyed and the engine, along with the first two coaches of the Purushottam Express, were thrown off the tracks upon colliding.
1998 Khanna tragedy
The Khanna tragedy unfolded on November 26, 1998. According to reports, the Mumbai-bound Sealdah Express rammed into several coaches of the Frontier Mail en route to Amritsar. The Frontier Mail had earlier derailed and toppled onto the track on which the Sealdah Express was running. The accident took place in the early hours of the day and killed around 212 people while they were asleep, leaving several injured.
1999 Gaisal collision
The Gaisal tragedy took place on August 2, 1999, when two passenger trains travelling at high speed on the same track collided with one another in West Bengal. The trains – Delhi-Guwahati Assam Express and the Brahmaputra Mail – collided at West Bengal’s Gaisal station, as a result of a human signalling error. According to the Justice GN Ray Commission report which was submitted in December 1999, the station staff at Kishanganj, Bihar, diverted the Delhi-Guwahati Assam Express to the wrong track. The driver and assistant driver of the train, and the staff at the Panjipara station failed to notice the wrong diversion, which resulted in the fatal collision that reportedly killed more than 300 passengers.
2002 Rafiganj train wreck
On September 10, 2022, the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express derailed on a 300-foot-long bridge over the Dhave River in Bihar. According to media reports, two coaches had fallen into the river while three were hanging from the bridge after the train derailed at around 10:30 pm, resulting in the death of around 140 people.
2005 Valigonda accident
On October 29, 2005, 114 passengers were reportedly killed when a Delta Fast Passenger train passing through a railway bridge derailed and fell into the stream below. Heavy rains had caused flash floods leading to an overflow that weakened the train tracks. The passenger train crashed into the water at Valigonda, a town in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district, an hour away from its destination. The train was reportedly introduced six months before the accident to run services between Repalle in Guntur and the capital city, Hyderabad.
2010 Jnaneshwari Express collision
On May 28, 2010, a few coaches of the Mumbai-bound Jnaneshwari Express derailed past midnight and collided with a goods train passing in the opposite direction. The accident took place between Khemasauli and Sardiha stations at Jhargram in West Bengal. The accident resulted in the death of 140 people, injuring more than 200.
2016 Pukhrayan train derailment
At around 3.00 am on November 20, 2016, fourteen coaches of the Indore-Patna Express train derailed at the Kanpur Dehat district in Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, there were at least 500 passengers on board at the time of the accident. Considered one of the deadliest accidents in the past decade, the tragedy resulted in about 150 deaths and left nearly 200 injured.