Search on for kin as toll touches 143

All the 14 derailed coaches of the Patna-bound train 19321 have been removed from the tracks. Many distraught people were seen sifting through the luggage and other belongings piled up at the site to look for clues regarding their missing loved ones. “I am looking for my brother. Who knows what has happened to him? He may have changed his seat... we have searched everywhere,” said Ramanand Tiwari. After seeing the bodies of three of his family members, Nirmal Verma was inconsolable. “Whoever I tried to look for is dead. My brother, my sister-in-law, daughter.... I haven’t found my mother yet. I fear I will find her in the same condition,” said Verma who was to travel with his family to a wedding but couldn’t get leave from work and was supposed to join them later. 

“143 bodies have been found so far, out of which 110 have been identified,” said IG (Kanpur range) Zaki Ahmad. While 120 bodies were pulled out till Sunday night, some others were found as rescuers later cleared the wreckage. Chief Medical Officer Kanpur Ramayan Prasad said 105 bodies have been handed over to family members after post mortem and free ambulance service was provided. Twenty-four bodies have been sent to Bihar, 25 to Madhya Pradesh and 56 in several districts of UP. 

83 of the 202 injured passengers were admitted in hospitals of Kanpur and neighbouring Kanpur-Rural districts while the rest of them have been released, Prasad said, adding 73 of them were seriously injured. Amid scenes of tragedy, several good samaritans took it upon themselves to provide succour to the traumatised passengers and help the rescuers and others on site and in hospitals by providing food and water.

An elderly woman’s walking stick proved to be the saviour for a family of seven from Muzaffarpur in the tragic Indore-Patna Express derailment in Uttar Pradesh.

The family of businessman Manoj Chaurasia of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, had boarded the ill-fated train at Indore and were going to their home in Patna. Chaurasia said his mother’s walking stick saved the lives of his family. He said that all seven members of his family were trapped in bogey B S1 after the accident. “I broke the window pane with the help of my mother’s stick and came out after nearly an hour after the mishap,” he said and thanked the almighty for the providential escape. Walking with the help of the ‘life-saving lucky’ stick, the elderly mother was in shock and could not speak anything.

Chaurasia’s wife Nandini said, “While the attendant of the coach and a few other passengers in the bogey lost their lives, death passed without touching us.” The family left for their home after the special train arrived at Patna junction from the accident site at Pukhrayan in rural Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh around 4 am on Monday. Meanwhile, Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal is camping at Patna junction to supervise the relief provided to victims and their kin. The team of doctors present at the station attended to the injured and a few of them were immediately rushed to hospitals in an ambulance parked at the station, the DM told PTI. The district administration also facilitated those arriving by the special train to go to their homes in Madhubani, Chapra, Muzaffarpur and other places from Patna junction.