“There will be no mercy”: the Prime Minister of India promised to severely punish the perpetrators of the terrible disaster

India is investigating the causes of a terrible train accident, in which the death toll exceeded 300 people. As work continues to clear the wreckage, the possibility of human error or alarm failure is being considered. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those responsible for the fatal accident would face the “severest punishment”.

After rescue work is complete, authorities have begun removing the mangled wreckage of two passenger trains that derailed in eastern India, killing more than 300 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country’s deadliest rail accidents in decades, officials said. on Sunday.

Investigators are investigating possible causes of Friday night’s plane crash in eastern Odisha’s Balasore district, including whether human error or some kind of signal glitch was involved, according to the Associated Press.

Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday evening, and work continued through the night, using heavy cranes to dismantle a locomotive that was stuck on the roof of a railroad car. No bodies were found in the locomotive, and work was completed on Sunday morning, said Sudhanshu Sarangi, director general of fire and emergency services in Odisha.

“It’s very, very tragic – I’ve never seen anything like it in my career,” admits Sudhansha Sarangi.

The local school was used as a makeshift mortuary, and police helped people identify deceased relatives whose bodies were covered in white cloth and placed in bags.

The accident comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on upgrading the rail network left over from the British colonial era in India, the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion people. Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, India’s railways, the world’s largest single-managed rail network, experience several hundred accidents each year.

A preliminary investigation showed that the Coromandel Express was signaled to exit the main rail line, but the signal was later turned off. The train entered another line, known as the Circle Line, and crashed into a freight train parked there, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Chaotic scenes erupted at the crash site Friday night as rescuers climbed onto the roof of the wrecked train to force open doors and windows using gas cutters to try and rescue people trapped inside the cars.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash site on Saturday to review relief efforts and speak with rescuers. He also visited the hospital, where he asked doctors about the treatment of the wounded, and spoke with some of the victims.

Modi told reporters that he feels the pain of those affected by the accident. According to him, the government will do everything possible to help them and severely punish anyone who is found guilty.

“The perpetrators must suffer the most severe punishment – they will not be spared,” the head of the Indian government warned.

Between ten and 12 cars of one train derailed, and debris from some of the mangled cars fell onto nearby tracks. The wreckage hit another passenger train coming from the opposite direction, causing up to three carriages of the second train to also derail, Railways Ministry spokesman Amitabh Sharma said.

According to the Associated Press, in 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst train accidents in India. In 2016, a passenger train derailed between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people. The most deadly accident on Indian railways was the tragedy that occurred in June 1981 in the state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal. At least 800 people have died after seven carriages of an overcrowded passenger train derailed and fell into a river during a cyclone.

Most train accidents in India are due to human error or outdated signaling equipment. At the same time, more than 12 million people travel daily on 14,000 trains across India, overcoming 64,000 km of track.