Lucknow/Auraiya: As many as 100 passengers were injured as ten carriages of the Kaifiyat Express derailed in Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya district early on Wednesday after ramming into a dumper carrying construction material for railway work, officials here said.
However, the railways said 25 people were injured in the incident and that the dumper did not belong to them.
Superintendent of Police, Auraiya, Sanjay Tyagi said one of the 10 derailed carriages overturned causing injuries to 100 passengers. Four of the seriously injured passengers were rushed to Saifai and Etawah hospitals, he said. Some of others were discharged from hospitals after first aid, he said adding no casualty were reported. The train travelling from Azamgarh to Delhi collided with the dumper at around 2:50 am between Pata and Achhalda railway stations, a spokesperson for the North Central Railway (NCR) said.
Secretary, Home, Bhagwan Swarup, said the accident took place due to a loader carrying material for work on a dedicated freight corridor.
“It was not an unmanned crossing. But there was a road parallel to the track on which the loader overturned,” Swarup said.
S.K Pankaj, Divisional Railway Manager-Allahabad, who reached the accident site, told media that prima facie it was the fault of the driver of the private dumper who has fled.
The repair work is under ways and the disrupted rail route between Kanpur and Etawah will be restored by Thursday, he said.
As back-to-back accidents in the last five days triggered demands for his resignation, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and took full moral responsibility for the recent train accidents.
Prabhu said he was “extremely pained by the unfortunate accidents, injuries to passengers and loss of precious lives”. Kaifiyat Express travels between Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi and the collision has impacted the train operations on the Delhi-Howrah route.
Five trains including the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani have been diverted and seven trains including Kanpur-New Delhi Shatabdi express have been cancelled. Since both Up and Down lines are blocked, around 40 local trains were also being diverted.
This is the second train accident in Uttar Pradesh in five days. On Saturday, a passenger train derailed in Muzaffaragar district leaving at least 23 dead and 156 injured.
