Railway staff suspended for Bihar accident

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG 17. The Railways has suspended four of its employees for the accident in Bihar on Thursday which claimed the lives of 10 passengers and resulted in injuries to 15 others.

Making a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha today, the Railway Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, said prima facie the cause of the accident appeared to be the rolling down of unhooked goods wagons from a station at a higher gradient to another station situated lower down the slope. Mr. Kumar assured the House that strict action would be taken against those found guilty.

Narrating the possible sequence of events, Mr. Kumar said a porter had uncoupled a ballast-laden goods train stabled at the Gidhaur station to create a passage for pedestrians. Due to the high gradient, 11 wagons started rolling back towards the Jamui station from where the Muzaffarpur-Sealdah Passenger had just begun to move out.

An alert staffer at Jamui warned the Sealdah Passenger's locomotive crew of the onrushing wagons and the train started backing. But before it could be diverted into a loop line, the detached wagons, which had gathered considerable momentum by then, crashed into the passenger train leading to telescoping (mounting of coaches on top of one another) of two passenger coaches.

Apart from the porter who allegedly uncoupled the goods train without observing proper precautions, the Railways has also suspended the station master, guard and driver of the goods train. Accident relief medical vans had rushed from Jhajha and Danapur, stranded passengers cleared and train running restored.

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