Visakhapatnam: It was 20 minutes past 11 pm on Saturday when Marla Sankara Rao of Bobbili was snoozing and awakened to chaos and screaming, bloodied passengers trying to climb out of the windows and asking for help, wreckage of the bogies, a few dead bodies lying next to him in the minutes after the ghastly Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar Hirakhand Express derailment.
The horrified-looking Mr Sankara Rao, who sustained a head concussion and a leg fracture and is being treated at the Area Hospital in Parvathipuram, recounted how the accident unfolded in the midnight of Saturday. “I boarded the train in Junagarh and it reached the Rayagada station at nearly 10 pm. After a hour-long break at the Rayagada station, the train started heading towards Bhubaneswar.
The lights went out and there was a lot screaming and blood. The fellow passengers heard a loud noise as if a vehicle’s brakes were suddenly applied. We couldn’t even ascertain what happened and where we were in the first ten minutes. Many victims were bleeding and screaming for help. Other distraught commuters were busy searching their relatives. Some were left in a deep shock after finding their relatives trapped in the mangled remains of the wreckage. It took about an hour for the rescue teams to reach the spot. We had to walk about a kilometer to reach the main road with those injuries. The ambulances arrived at the end of road and transferred the injured to hospitals in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh,” said Sankara Rao.
Commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF) from Rayagada, Mr. SN Yadav, and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Commandant MK Yadav, who reached the spot within one hour after the accident also recounted their firsthand experience of the scary Saturday night. “We started retrieving the victims, who were trapped in between the remains of bogies, from midnight itself. It was like blood everywhere as many passengers had broken their ribs, necks and sustained severe injuries. Tens of unfortunate passengers had lost their lives. The passengers of the train experienced the worst nightmare of their life.
The NDRF had deployed about 200 men for the rescue operations. Most of the deceased persons were from the S8 and S9 bogies,” said Mr. SN Yadav and MK Yadav. The chaotic situation continued at the Kuneru station on Sunday afternoon too.
