Indian Train Service Resumes After Deadly Crash

Kolkata, June 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Jun, 2023 ) :One of the train services involved in a triple collision in India's deadliest railway disaster for decades resumed journeys on Wednesday, as officials revised the death toll up to 288.

"The Coromandal Express is back on track," railway spokesman Aditya Kumar Chaudhary said, with a train departing Shalimar station near Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon on a 25-hour journey south to Chennai.

The train, which was full, chugged out of the station five minutes behind the scheduled time as scores of people looked on.

The service was one of three trains involved in the crash near Balasore in the eastern state of Odisha on Friday.

As usual, long and winding queues formed for the train's unreserved section.

"Four friends who were travelling on the ill-fated train went missing after the accident on Friday," said Samaresh Mondal, 30, a migrant worker in the line.

"I am ready to accept my destiny. I am forced to go to Chennai to earn bread for me and my family." Pradeep Jena, Odisha's top civil servant, said late on Tuesday that the official death toll had risen to 288.

At least 1,175 people were injured, with many of them in critical condition and still being treated in hospital.

Jena said the revised toll came after deaths were tallied from both hospitals and mortuaries and noted that 83 bodies remain unidentified.

Medical centres were overwhelmed by the number of casualties and there are fears the death toll could rise further.