New Delhi: Nearly 1,000 passengers had a roller-coaster-type ride in a train for about 10 km without its engine in Odisha on Saturday night. The incident occurred when Ahmedabad-Puri Express coaches were detached from the engine and after sometime it started in the backward direction before it could be stopped. The railway authorities have suspended seven officials for the lapses that led to the freak accident.

According to the Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani, the incident was an isolated one due to the staff negligence.

A video clip of the incident was widely shared over the social media showing the engine-less coaches running away through a railway platform as helpless onlookers were seen screaming and they were are shouting at the passengers to pull the train’s emergency brake.

The railways spokesperson commented “more heads are likely to roll”. “Something ghastly could have happened and it was averted by alert staff. Safety cannot be compromised,” spokesman JP Mishra told news reporters.

The train comprised of Twenty two engine-less coaches with all the passengers on board had to travel a distance of nearly 10 kilometres before railway employees managed to salvage the situation by placing stones on the track and brought the train to a halt.

No passenger on board the train was injured, the railway spokesperson said.

The direction of the coaches where it travelled towards was Kesinga in Kalahandi district starting from Titlagarh station which is around 380 kilometeres from Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar.

“Everybody in the railways (ministry) is aghast and shocked,” Mr JP Mishra said.

According to the authorities, the issue was created due to the brakes which are applied when coaches are detached or attached to the engine were incorrectly used or overlooked altogether. The employees who were suspended included two engine drivers, three carriage repairing staff and two operating department employees.

A team comprising of senior officers was also constituted by the railway department to investigate the incident. “We have also ordered a one-month long drive over the entire network for sensitising the staff regarding the precautions to be taken to prevent such incidents,” Mr Lohani said.

In a similar incident back in November 2016, about 150 people were killed when 14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express rolled off the tracks around 100 km from Kanpur.

In another such incident in August last year, a total of 20 people were killed after the Puri-Haridwar Utkal Express got derailed in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar.

A government report for the year 2012 said almost 15,000 people were killed in various ways every year on the country’s railways and termed the loss of human life as an annual ‘massacre’.

According to statistics, more than 22 million passengers commute daily over some 9,000 trains across the country.

More than 22 million passengers commute daily on some 9,000 trains across the country.

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