RailEnquiry

False alarm that a coach had caught fire triggers stampede; some passengers jump into river near Eluru station.At least 15 passengers of the Thiruvananthapuram-Guwahati Express sustained injuries in a freak accident, reportedly caused by stampede following a false alarm that a coach had caught fire, near here on Monday.Eyewitnesses said some passengers on the footboard of different coaches that were packed to capacity jumped into the Tammileru river a few minutes before the train reached the Eluru station from Thiruvananthapuram, following screams that a bogie was aflame.A Railway Protection Force official said eight passengers were rushed to the government hospital here. One of them, Manik Ali from Assam, suffered a head injury, while Atta Biswas from West Bengal sustained a fracture in his leg. Others were treated for minor injuries.Jayaraj, guard of the train, told The Hindu that a thick cloud of dust was caused when the belt that runs the dynamo came into contact with the ballast on either side of the rails. Some passengers mistook it for smoke caused by a fire and raised an alarm. This was followed by stampede in some coaches. Even as a passenger stopped the train by pulling the chain, some jumped into the river, which was shallow. They walked ashore and given medical aid.Additional Superintendent of Police K. Satyanarayana advised the train crew to suspend it until a safety check was conducted by experts from the South Central Railway. The other injured persons were identified as Arun Das, Samal Mandal, Rajkiran, Ram Bikas, Wahid Ansari, Deepak, Ghyasuddin, Bishnu Vihar, Haruhaldar, Sankar Ray, Syed Ali, all from West Bengal; Gangabhavani from Chengalpattu (Tamil Nadu) and Niranjan Langulesa (Odisha). They later left by the same train.