The Hindu : Rain hampers rescue work

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 25, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

Rain hampers rescue work

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI June 24. The toll in the accident on the Konkan Railway between Rajapur and Vibhavwadi in Sindhudurg district has touched 51. Continuous downpour hampered the restoration of the track and train services, authorities said, pointing out that troops from Goa were called in to speed up rescue and relief work late on Monday.

It was said that not all the bodies could be identified and "it may take some time before the kith and kin claim their own." Only 19 could be identified.

While trains remained cancelled or re-routed, the deadline the Konkan Railway had set for itself to start operating trains by early Tuesday morning did not materialise.

According to the Konkan Railway spokesperson, 68 army personnel and a team of 25 army doctors were brought in from Goa.

The accident is the worst on the Konkan Railway, considered safe to even try out high-speed trains of up to 160 km per hour. When the accident occurred near the mouth of a tunnel, the train, some 10 minutes after it left Kankavali, was moving at about 75 km per hour. It hit a boulder that had bounced on to the track due to a landslip and derailed.

The Konkan Railway, which was set up to build and operate trains on the tracks built in quick time, operates up to 12 pairs of trains a day, but on most days, when some weekly trains do not run, it drops to eight pairs. All these trains are now suspended.

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