India train crash that killed 275 people caused by signal error, authorities say
The rail crash in India that killed 275 people was caused by an electronic signal error that sent a high-speed passenger train onto a track with a freight train, officials said Sunday.
The Coromandel Express was traveling through Odisha state on the main track line, but was signaled to switch to an adjacent loop line, according to authorities.
A freight train carrying iron ore was already on the secondary line, and the Coromandel Express plowed into it Friday night in Balasore. The impact flipped train coaches onto another track, where they collided with a second passenger train, the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express.
Further investigation will be needed to determine if the signal error was a computer glitch or a human mistake, senior railway official Jaya Verma Sinha said.
“The system is 99.9% error free. But 0.1% chances are always there for an error,” she said.
The three-train crash was one of the deadliest in India in decades. However, train-related deaths are common in what is now the world’s most populous country.
Between 2017 and 2021, 100,000 train-related deaths were recorded, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Many of those involved people falling off trains or getting run over on the tracks.
During that time period, 293 people were killed in derailments, according to India’s Comptroller and Auditor General.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced plans to modernize India’s rail system, but the project will be massive. More than 40,000 miles of track crisscross the country, much of it laid during the British colonial period. An estimated 22 million people ride the trains every day.
The crash in Odisha was the country’s deadliest rail accident since 1999, when two trains collided in the eastern state of Bengal, killing at least 285 people.
With News Wire Services
