Odisha train accident: Railway minister gets emotional while talking about missing people

New Delhi: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav got emotional while talking about the missing people in the tragic triple train accident in Odisha’s Balasore on Sunday. Talking to media persons, he said that his aim is to ensure that the missing people can be reunited with their families as soon as possible.

An emotional Ashwini Vaishnav said, “Our aim is to ensure that the family members of all the missing people find them at the earliest. Our responsibility is not over yet.”

Three trains (two down and one up) have left the section and we plan to run about seven tonight. We have to move this entire segment towards normalisation, said Vaishnav, who was camping at the train accident site along with Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

#Watch , Balasore, Odisha:…”Our aim is to ensure that the family members of the missing people find them at the earliest… Our responsibility is not over yet”: Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav talking about got emotional #Odisha train accident pic.twitter.com/bKNnLmdTlC– ANI (@ANI) June 4, 2023

Train movement resumes at Odisha accident site

The first train on the section where the accident took place in Balasore started its journey at around 10.40 pm on Sunday night, 51 hours after the horrific accident that killed 275 people. Hundreds of media persons and railway officials watched as Ashwini Vaishnav flagged off the goods train.

The coal-laden train was on its way from Vizag port to Rourkela Steel Plant and was running on the same track where the Bengaluru-Howrah train derailed on Friday.

The Howrah-bound train crashed into the overturned bogies of the Coromandel Express, which had collided with a stationary goods train seconds earlier.

Ashwini Vaishnav tweeted, “Recovery of down line complete. First train movement in the section.”

Down line restoration complete. First train movement in the section. pic.twitter.com/cXy3jUOJQ2— Ashwini Vaishnav (@ashwinivaishnav) June 4, 2023

Barely two hours after the downline was restored, the upline was also restored.

Up-line train movement also started. pic.twitter.com/JQnd7yUuEB— Ashwini Vaishnav (@ashwinivaishnav) June 4, 2023

The first train to run on the upline of the accident affected section was an empty goods train. This is the same track on which the Coromandel Express was running before crashing into a stationary goods train before entering the loop line.

Odisha train accident: Railways demands CBI probe, signs of sabotage

The Railways on Sunday demanded a CBI probe into the Balasore train accident, hours after Ashwini Vaishnav said the “root cause” of the accident and the people behind the “criminal” act have been identified. Railway officials also indicated that possible ‘sabotage’ and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to Friday’s accident.

Vaishnav said the cause of the accident was related to an electric point machine and electronic interlocking.

“The setting of the point machine was changed. How and why it was done will be revealed in the inquiry report… The root cause of the horrific incident has been identified… I don’t want to go into details. The report comes out All I would say is that the root cause and those responsible for the criminal act have been identified,” he said.

The death toll in the three trains derailment on Friday was revised to 275 from 288 by the Odisha government, which said some bodies were counted twice earlier. With 187 bodies yet to be identified, keeping them until claimed by the next of kin of the victims is proving a challenge for the local administration.