Balasore in Odisha is yet to recover from the horrific train accident that claimed more than 270 lives last week. In a heartbreaking development, the government school where bodies of the crash victims were kept, was demolished on Friday.
According to reports, students of the Bahanaga High School were reluctant to return to the premises even after the bodies were moved out. Traumatised by the event, parents, too, were reluctant to send children to classes in the school. The people of Bahanaga were also apprehensive of the presence of 'spirits' in the building which was turned into a temporary morgue in the wake of the triple train crash.
Balasore district collector Dattareya Bhausaheb Shinde who visited the premises earlier tried to allay the fears of parents and students, but had to agree to their requests to demolish the building. “They want to demolish the old building and renovate it so that children do have any fear or apprehension to attend classes,” NDTV quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, as many as 82 bodies of victims of the crash still remain unidentified, a week after the tragedy. The Odisha government on Thursday held discussions with the officials from West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand seeking help in early identification and disposal of the human remains. AIIMS Bhubaneswar said out of the 162 bodies kept at the institute, 80 bodies have been handed over to the families of deceased persons while 82 other remain unidentified.
As identification becomes a challenge and some bodies are being claimed by multiple families, officials are considering DNA sampling to identify and hand over the bodies to families.
The tragic accident which happened on the night of June 2 involved the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and a goods train.
