A headless body was recovered along the railway tracks in Maharashtra's Jalgaon district, taking the total toll of train accident deaths to 13. The incident happened between Maheji and Pardhade stations near Pachora, more than 400 km from Mumbai on Wednesday after some passengers of Mumbai-bound Pushpak Express, who jumped off the train, were run over by Karnataka Express heading from Bengaluru to Delhi on the adjacent tracks.
According to a passenger, who was inside the Pushpak Express, people began to panic when someone cried fire. Rajeev Sharma, from Lucknow, said he was inside the sleeper coach of the train when it came to a stop after someone pulled the emergency chain. "Some people jumped out of the train from the nearby compartment shouting "fire, fire, get out". There was panic inside our coach too," Sharma told Jansatta.
He added that women and children began jumping out of the train. "My friend too was pushed out of the train and suffered injuries. By then, the Karnataka Express had come. I shouted on seeing the train coming from the other direction, but no one heard in the melee," Sharma added.
Though there were speculations that sparks and smoke were seen in the general compartment of the train, Dilip Kumar, executive director of Information and Publicity, Railway Board, denied that any spark or fire inside the coach caused passengers to pull the alarm.
In a video message from Davos in Switzerland, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis too confirmed that some passengers in the train mistakenly assumed that smoke was coming out of the train.
Railway officials said the loco pilots of both Pushpak and Karnataka Express followed the protocol and tried their best to avoid the accident.
While the driver of Pushpak Express had turned on the flasher light as per the rule, the driver of Karnataka Express applied brakes after seeing the flasher light signal of Pushpak Express. "However, the visibility of the train (Karnataka Express) and its braking distance was affected by the track curvature," a senior Central Railway official said.
Trains run at more than 100 kmph in this section which falls under the trunk route of the railway.