Title - Where death comes on rails with deadly regularity

It has been a long list of accidents and deaths at level crossings since 1996 on the coastal railway route via Alappuzha Death lurks along the railway tracks in Alappuzha district, all the way from Aroor to Kayamkulam. On Sunday, when five more lives were snuffed out when a car driver attempted to cross an unmanned level crossing as a train barrelled down the tracks at Aroor, the public psyche has been rent apart once again.While debates will go on about whether the car driver erred or not, as in various cases before, few doubt the fact that unmanned level crossings have been the cause of most such accidents in the district. While Railways claim that a solution is being found, the accidents have been occurring with deadly regularity.It was in May 1996 that the district witnessed its worst accident, which still ranks among the biggest rail accidents in the State. Thirty-five people of a marriage party were killed as the Kayamkulam-Ernakulam passenger train rammed the bus on which they were travelling in at an unmanned level crossing at Cheppad. Two years later, five passengers of a Tata Sumo van were killed when the Thiruvananthapuram-Howrah Express tore through it near Haripad.The next big accident, with several smaller ones in between, came on August 8, 2010, when four persons, including a German tourist couple, were killed at the Poopallykavu unmanned level crossing, near Mararikulam. The Chennai-Alappuzha Express rammed the taxi in which they were on their way to a nearby hospital.

While two youngsters were killed at the Anjilikadu level crossing, near Aroor, on January 22 this year, two persons were killed when Netravati Express rammed a mini-lorry at an unmanned level crossing at Panachuvadu, near Punnapra, on October 4, 2010. In September 2009, an autorickshaw driver, Lawrence, from Punnapra was killed at the same Panachuvadu crossing when his three-wheeler came before the Kochuveli-Amritsar Express. Lawrence was killed while he was on his way to pick up students from a nearby school. On August 10, 2010, just two days after the accident involving the German couple, a daily wage labourer Bhadran was killed when he attempted to cross the Karumadi high-school level crossing at Thakazhi on his bicycle.

On August 6 the same year, near the district headquarters, nearly 70 school students had a providential escape when the school bus on which they were travelling got stalled right in the middle of the tracks at an unmanned level crossing. Women working on a field nearby raised the alarm and an alert train driver applied the brakes, bringing the Bangalore-Thiruvananthapuram Express to a halt less than 50 metres from the bus.

Promise

In May this year, Union Minister of State for Railways K.H. Muniappa had promised that all level crossings in the State would be made safe by March 31, 2013. He had stated that out of the 84 unmanned rail level crossings in the State, 30 would be manned soon and four closed. The remaining 50 level crossings would be manned by March 2013. Till then, unmanned level crossings in the district will continue to be potential death traps.