ODISHA: Faulty connections in the automated signalling system for the railways network, made during the repair works on a rail-road barrier led to India’s worst train disaster in two decades, an official probe has revealed.
At least 288 people were killed, and more than 1,000 others were injured when three trains collided at Bahanaga Bazar station in the eastern Indian state of Odisha in the deadly rail tragedy of June 2.
The disaster struck as a passenger train hit a stationary freight train and went off track, hitting another passenger train coming from the opposite direction.
In the probe report, seen by Reuters, the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) investigators said the first collision occurred due to modifications done to the signalling circuit to fix frequent problems at a nearby rail-road barrier.
Local railway staff did not have a standard circuit diagram which led to a faulty connection in the signalling system when they tried to take the boom-barrier circuit offline for repair, it said. The malfunctioning system directed the passenger train onto the path of the freight train, it said.
Reuters last month reported for the first time that investigators were focusing on the repair work on the rail-road barrier and its possible connection to a manual bypass of the signalling system.
Indian Railways, the fourth largest train network in the world, is a state monopoly run by the Railway Board. The board reports to the Railways Ministry.
The rail network is undergoing a $30 billion transformation with gleaming new trains and modern stations under Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s push to boost infrastructure and connectivity but the crash raised questions about whether safety was getting enough attention.
The CRS probe report said there were lapses at multiple levels in the signal and telecom department, and standard operating procedures were not followed during the repair work.
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