NDRF jawan on board Coromandel Express alerted his team after it derailed in Odisha

THANJAVUR: National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) jawan Venktesan N K, who was on board the Coromandel Express which derailed in Odisha, was among the first to alert his force about that tragic accident.

Venktesan NK said, “I alerted my team about the accident. I informed the Odisha NDRF team. Within one hour, an NDRF team was on the spot. The nearby civilians helped us a lot in providing food, water and first aid”.

“The accident happened around 6:50 pm on Friday. There was a loud noise inside the train. Everybody was scared and people started praying to god. I asked people not to lose their cool and made them understand that something might have happened. The train slowed down after that. I asked them to settle down. I was in the AC coach. After the train stopped, I got down to see and realised that an accident had occurred”, Venktesan further said.

#WATCH | Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav return to Delhi after rescue operations and restoration of the railway line at the Balasore train accident site pic.twitter.com/WaT8MdcPb3

— ANI (@ANI) June 5, 2023

Upon his return from Odisha after the horrific railway accident, which killed over 270 people and left over 1,000 injured, Railway Board Chairman A K Lahoti on Monday evening briefed top officials in the Prime Minister’s Office on the update on the ground, including the ongoing investigation.

“Chairperson of the Railway Board will be meeting top officials in the Prime Minister’s office, including the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, about the details from the ground”, reliable sources had earlier said.

While the inquiry ordered by the Railway ministry is currently under way, the government has also sent a request to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take up the matter. “There is a need to have a deep investigation by a professional agency to rule out any deliberate interference”, top government sources said.

Within hours of the rail accident, the chairman railway board was on the ground with the Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw and returned only on Monday. So he is likely to brief the details to the PMO that has been keeping a constant watch on the developments on the ground.

The triple train accident in Balasore happened on Friday evening. At least 275 people were killed, while more than 1,000 were injured in the accident that took place near the Bahanaga Bazar area on June 2. The Odisha government on Monday informed that 151 bodies from the triple train accident that took place in Odisha’s Balasore district have been identified till today morning.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of the Balasore accident site from ground zero and also visited the injured being treated at the hospital. Before leaving Delhi for the accident site, PM Modi had also chaired a high-level review meeting on the same. (ANI)