Survivors of rail tragedy recount horror
VIZIANAGARAM: 'Bahut shor tha. Maine biwi-bacchon ko neeche uthara tha, lekin mere utharne se pehle doosra train unhe maar diya (There was a big commotion. I had helped my wife and children get down, but before I myself could alight, they were run over by another train),' said Manoj Kumar Singh, holding in his tears as he narrated the ghastly train accident in which he lost his wife and his two daughters at Gotlam in Vizianagaram on Saturday night.
An attempt to save themselves after hearing a false fire alarm in their compartment proved fatal for eight passengers of the Allappuzha-Dhanbad Bokaro Express when the Rayagada-Vijayawada passenger train coming in the opposite direction mowed them down at Gotlam station in Vizianagaram district.
Manoj Kumar, who works as a mechanic in Bangalore, was going to his hometown Aurangabad in Bihar along with his wife Shweta Singh and daughters Samhita, 10, and Shourya, 2, on a holiday.
Manoj said he had pushed wife Shweta and daughters Shourya and Samhita out of the compartment as people jostled to get down the train after the fire scare spread. 'I couldn't do anything but watch them come under a running train,' he said.
It was equally traumatic for Thakur, who helped his wife Tara Devi, 34, to disembark the train. 'I was trying to save her,' is all that he murmurs repeatedly to the police who tried to inquire from him about the incident. The couple were travelling from Alleppy to Ranchi.
'The place was full of severed body parts and bodies. It was impossible to locate them until the officials deployed flood lights,' said Nani.
News Posted: 3 November, 2013
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