What is the major reason for the Coramandal Express train accident in Odisha?

   I am sure all of you would have already got to know the reason for this accident through various news portals or social media. Koramandal express switched to a track where a goods train was already parked. It hit the other train at a speed of 125–130 kmph resulting in its last three general compartments hitting the last 2 general compartments of the other train running on third track. Since those 5 compartments belonged to general classes, obviously the number of people in them was much more than those in reserved classes. That’s one of the prime reasons why so many people lost their lives.

This is undoubtedly a very tragic incident & must not repeat in mistake.

My objective of writing this answer is to make a few requests :

• Let’s keep our personal bias aside as people are fighting for their lives in hospitals, families of many are arranging the funeral. Some of them are worried about how would they be able to transport the dead bodies to their native place, some are worried about how will they be able to buy woods for the final rites, they don’t have money. Some of them were probably travelling without tickets, sitting on the floor of the train in general compartment because of lack of funds.
• Let’s not make this issue political. Earning brownie points after such incidents is certainly not very different from what vultures do with dead bodies.
• Let the relevant authorities investigate the matter. Let us not add any angle such as sabotage or terr*r angle at this stage. Let’s not add a Hindu Muslim angle to it, at least at this stage.
• Let us not fall in trap of those who will use this opportunity too to praise China. We cannot expect those people to be the well wishers of our country. Only China has best trains & best investigative agencies as per them. China can never go wrong.
• Let’s not challenge other achievements of the railways such as Vande Bharat just because a train has derailed. These are 2 separate topics.
• Let’s not lose hope. We may be slow in achieving what we could have achieved by 1985 but let’s not create an environment that India is a sh*thole & it cannot improve ever. We have come a long way to ensure that train accidents are rare. We need to reduce them to zero.

We must also understand that Kavach is a new technology & it takes years to build & test a technology which is expected to be the cheapest & still most effective in the world. It’s trials went on till about 2020. Then it’s implementation started & it’s expected to be installed on 34000 kms track by 2027. Budget allocation has been done.

Let’s also understand that even if the train & the tracks would have had anti collision devices installed, this accident would probably still have happened because the distance between the two trains when it switched wasn’t enough to even apply emergency breaks. So, it’s a rare incident but very unfortunate.

This is a major tragedy. We have lost many lives. Let’s not become Satyapal Malik who would probably link this accident with some old discussion with Prime Minister about corrosion on that track.

We aren’t politicians. We are the citizens. While we have the right to criticise the government but let’s not fall in trap of those who are happy today because this incident has given them a change to ask for resignation from Railway Minister.

I pray that the almighty gives enough strength to those who have lost their family members in this horrible accident.

Rest, it’s your choice.

One thought that I have is that while government has announced financial relief to these families, it would take months to get that money. Shouldn’t the government do something for them right away. They need help at this hour. There should be a provision to provide cash to them by SDM or DM. It obviously needs to happen in a way that it’s not a new way to make money.

Thanks. 🙏🙏