Odisha train crash most likely caused by human error

The deadly train crash in India’s Odisha state was most likely the result of human error, officials said on Sunday, amid claims that it may have been caused by sabotage.

At least 275 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured when two express passenger trains and one freight train rammed into each other in India’s eastern Odisha state on Friday, in one of the country’s worst rail accidents.

There were more than 3,400 passengers travelling in the two trains.

About 17 coaches of the Coromandel Express, which runs between the eastern cities of Kolkata and Chennai, and the Howrah Superfast Express, travelling north between the cities of Bengaluru and Howrah, derailed near Bahanaga railway station in Odisha’s Balasore district at about 7pm.

The Coromandel Express was travelling at a speed of 128kph while the other passenger train was travelling at 126kph, railway officials said.

A freight train standing on an adjoining track was also involved.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday said that the “root cause” of the accident was identified.

“It happened due to a change in electronic interlocking,” he said.

“The commissioner of railway safety has investigated the matter and let the investigation report come, but we have identified the cause of the incident and the people responsible for it,” he added.

An electronic interlocking system prevents conflicting movements between trains through an arrangement of tracks. The aim of this system is that no train gets the signal to proceed unless the route is proven safe.

An initial investigation by Indian Railways suggested that a “mistaken” signal probably caused the Coromandel Express to enter a loop line on which the freight train was parked.

A loop line is a railway track that diverges from the main line and rejoins it further on. The tracks are used as service lanes for trains to manoeuvre without affecting other trains.

Jaya Verma Sinha, a Railway Board member, told reporters that initial findings indicated that the cause of the accident was “signalling interference”.

“The signal was green on both the main lines. A signalling problem was detected. The reaction time was very less at such a high speed,” she said.

Prakash Kumar Sen, head of the mechanical engineering department at Kirodimal Institute of Technology in Chhattisgarh state, said that all the information was pointing towards a “human error”.

“If two trains are on the same line, the interlocking system is used to shift a train from one line to another to avoid a collision. Earlier it was done manually using a lever but now it is done through a controlling unit,” Mr Sen told The National.

Mr Sen has written research papers on the Indian Railway system, including a 2020 study titled “Causes of Rail Derailment in India and Corrective Measures”.

“In my opinion, it is totally a human mistake because the passing signal was given for the wrong track. The correct information was not conveyed,” he said.

Other theories were also circulating on social media, including that the accident was caused by sabotage, a claim also made by former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, now a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Sudhanshu Mani, a railway expert who is the brain behind India’s new Vande Bharat express train services, said that “extremist factors” may have been involved in the accident.

“Why did the train take the loop line? There can be many reasons, two plausible. One is sabotage – I am not saying it is, but it is a possible reason. It can also be unauthorised signalling,” Mr Mani told The National.

“It is an aberration that the signalling system will never allow. There may be some extremist factors,” he said.

Investigators blamed Maoist rebels for a passenger train derailment in 2010 that killed nearly 150 people in West Bengal. They said the rebels had destroyed a section of the railway track.

India has the world’s second-largest railway system and carries millions of commuters and long-distance travellers each day.

But large parts of the 63,000km network have not been upgraded for decades.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been modernising and expanding the railways since coming to power in 2014, but experts say the focus has been on the “makeover” of trains and stations rather than upgrading the technology.

The finance ministry allocated 2.4 trillion rupees ($30 billion) for the railways in this year’s budget, a 50 per cent increase from the previous fiscal year, to upgrade tracks, ease congestion and add new trains.

Despite modernisation, railway or railway-related accidents remain common in the country.

“Infrastructure has been improving gradually; the kind of money allotted is huge but the infrastructure has to see more investment and focus. I am not saying this because of this accident, but for improving railway capacity, utilisation and safety, there has to be more focus, mainly on tracks,” Mr Mani said.

“The focus should be on train visibility. People like it, but there is a lot of focus on improving stations, on the makeover of stations like malls, which is not required,” he said.