Hirakhand Express derailment: 10 headless bodies recovered

Rayagada: The toll in the Hirakhand Express accident rose to 41 on Monday, according to the Rayagada administration, though Railway authorities put it at 39. So intense was the impact of the mishap, that 10 bodies received at the district headquarter hospital here were without heads.

An officer of the district administration who is not authorised to speak to the media, said that pictures of the unidentified bodies were uploaded in the system at the helpdesk to see if anyone looking for their relatives could identify them.

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“But we stopped after some time as showing the distorted bodies with the clothes torn apart could get us into trouble given the human rights condition,” the officer said.

A Red Cross youth volunteer, Kiran, who was helping to shift the bodies from the ambulance to the post-mortem room, said, “I shivered when I saw some of the bodies. Body parts of several of the deceased were severely crushed; the eye ball had come out in one instance.”

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The hospital was unable to provide the required treatment and most of the injured left the hospital even though they had not recovered fully, said a  Red Cross volunteer.

Victims identified from clothes

The relative of a victim, Rahim Khan, said there was no MRI or any other facility at the hospital that can scan a bone fracture properly.

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Of the 34 bodies brought to the hospital, 24 were disposed of Sunday. Two bodies have not been identified yet and there are two legs that were recovered from the accident site. Most relatives of the deceased identified the bodies from the clothes they were wearing.

When this reporter wanted to check the names of the deceased listed on Monday at the helpdesk of the hospital, two policemen stopped him and wanted to know who he was looking for.

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Asked the reason for this, the constable said, “A man tried to falsely claim a body in a bid to get compensation. At the last moment, it was found that the body belonged to some other family. So, we are asking people to tell us the name first, or else they will see who all are unidentified and claim the same name.”