A tragic accident occurred on Monday near the New Jalpaiguri railway station in West Bengal, India, where two trains collided, resulting in the deaths of at least eight individuals and injuring 25 others.
The collision involved a goods train and the Kanchanjunga Express, which was traveling from Agartala to Sealdah.
The impact caused three rear compartments to derail around 9 am in the Northeast Frontier Railway zone, PTI noted.
Railway Board Chairman, Jaya Varma Sinha, indicated that preliminary findings pointed to human error as the likely cause of the accident.
“The first indications suggest that this is a case of signal disregard,” Sinha stated, according to ANI.
She confirmed that both the loco pilot who allegedly ignored the signal and the guard of the Kanchenjunga Express perished in the crash.
Sinha highlighted that Kavach, an anti-train collision system, is being implemented across railway routes in the country with urgency, and there are plans to introduce it in West Bengal within this year.
Kavach functions by alerting the loco pilot when a signal is missed, which is a common cause of train collisions.
If the driver does not respond appropriately, the system automatically engages the train’s braking mechanism.
Union Minister of Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, shared on social media that rescue operations were being conducted at a “war footing,” with coordination between officials from the railway ministry, the National Disaster Response Force, and the State Disaster Response Force. “Injured are being shifted to the hospital,” he reported. “Senior officials have reached the site.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and mentioned that the railway minister was en route to the accident site. “Spoke to officials and took stock of the situation,” Modi posted on social media. “Rescue operations are underway to assist the affected.”
West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, also confirmed that efforts were being made on a war footing at the site.
“DM [district magistrate], SP [superintendent of police], doctors, ambulances and disaster teams have been rushed to the site for rescue, recovery, medical assistance,” she wrote on social media.
This incident follows a devastating train collision in Odisha’s Balasore on June 2, 2023, where 288 passengers lost their lives and approximately 900 were injured.
The Indian Railways later clarified that the Kavach system was not in place on the route where the Balasore accident occurred.
