Odisha Train Accident: Railway Minister Gets Emotional As He Speaks About Missing Persons

Odisha train accident: Speaking to reporters, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said his aim is to ensure that the missing people can be reunited with their family members as soon as possible.

New Delhi: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday turned emotional as he spoke about the missing persons in the tragic triple train crash in Odisha's Balasore. Speaking to media persons, he said that his aim is to ensure that the missing people can be reunited with their family members as soon as possible. 

"Our objective is to ensure that all the missing persons' family members find them as soon as possible. Our responsibility is not over yet," said a visibly emotional Ashwini Vaishnaw as he announced the restoration of the accident-affected section.

Three trains have left from the section (two down and one up) and we have planned to run around seven tonight. We have to take this entire section towards normalisation, Vaishnaw, who had been camping at the site of the train accident along with Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, added.

Train movement resumes at Odisha accident site

The first train on the section where the accident happened in Balasore started its journey at around 10.40 pm on Sunday, 51 hours after the horrific crash killed 275 people. The goods train was seen off by Ashwini Vaishnaw as scores of media persons and railway officials looked on.

The train carrying coal was headed towards the Rourkela Steel plant from Vizag port and was running on the same track where the ill-fated Bangalore-Howrah train met with the tragedy on Friday.

The Howrah-bound train crashed with the capsized bogies of the Coromandel Express which had collided with a stationary freight train seconds earlier.

"Down-line restoration complete. First train movement in section," Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted.

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

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

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

An empty goods train was the first train to run on the upline of the accident-affected section. This is the same track on which the Coromandel Express was running before it entered into the loop line to crash into a stationary goods train.

Odisha train accident: Railways seeks CBI probe, hints at sabotage

The railways on Sunday sought a CBI inquiry into the Balasore train accident, hours after Ashwini Vaishnaw said the 'root cause' of the crash 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 the Friday accident.

Vaishnaw 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 probe report... The root cause of the horrifying incident has been identified... I do not want to go into details. Let the report come out. I will just say that the root cause and the people responsible for the criminal act have been identified," he said.

The death toll in the three-train crash 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 till the time they are claimed by the victims' kin is proving to be a challenge to the local administration.