BHUBANESWAR: It was a little above one hour the sun had set in and they were preparing to play cards with co-passengers after sipping the evening tea with snacks. Little did they know that their moment of happiness and joy would not last long and come to an abrupt end, with screams for help coming out mangled coaches and a few bodies were seen trapped in the mangled coaches.
This heartrending scene at the train crash site in Andhra Pradesh’s Kantakapalle in Vizianagaram district was too painful to be witnessed even by stonyhearted persons.
“Our train left Visakhapatnam at 6 pm on Sunday. At around 7.10 pm when we were just settling down on our seats after sipping our evening tea, we heard a large bang. Before we could realise anything, the train skidded off the track. Our heads dashed against the window railings and front seats and suffered bruises,” said Dilip Kumar Patro, a small trader of Rayagada who was returning to Rayagada on Visakhapatnam-Rayagada Special Passenger train.
Patro said some children, including his little daughter, who were sitting on the top tiers, fell off their places.
“Many of the children fell down and suffered injuries. They started crying in pain and shouted to get out of the derailed coach that we were travelling in. With the help of local people and rescuers, we came out,” said Patro.
Another passenger named P Chandrasekhar said, “There was utter chaos in the bogey in which I was travelling. Everybody was running here and there. I somehow managed to get down from the bogey and took my family to the nearby highway after walking for about one kilometre.”
“While getting down from the bogey, I saw a body lying below it. Though derailed, my bogey was largely unharmed. So that body might have come from another bogey which was badly mangled in the mishap,” said Chandrasekhar.
Sudhanshu Singh, a resident of Rayagada, said there were not many passengers on the train as it was Sunday.
“Had it been any other day of the week other than Sunday, there would have been a lot more casualties in the mishap,” Singh added.
“At first, we were clueless. The accident jolted us up big time. It took us a while to get our bearings right. After realising that our train had met with an accident, we tried to collect our belongings and get down from the coach as soon as possible. After reaching the highway, the rescue team brought us to Rayagada.”
Although one from Odisha reportedly died in the horrific train crash in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday evening, many from the state are feared to have been injured in the mishap that occurred between Alamanda and Kantakapalle railways stations under Waltair division of the East Coast Railway (ECoR) zone.
