Title - T.N. Express fire toll 34

The death toll in the Tamil Nadu Express fire mishap rose to 34 on Saturday with Sukhdev Singh of Amritsar dying of burns at the Narayana Hospital here.Sukhdev Singh, 23, suffered 55 per cent burns in the July 30 accident. His father Gurdeep Singh, a plumber at the Northern Railway Mechanical Workshop, Amritsar, is making arrangements to take the body back home by a flight from Chennai. A student of the Indian Maritime University, East Coast Road, Chennai, Sukhdev was returning with three co-students after visiting Amritsar.On Friday, one of the passengers, M.V. Sambasiva Rao, died of burns.Relatives of Avinash, a passenger and native of Warangal who had been missing, could not identify him.Till now, no one has claimed the bodies of a woman and a man lying at the mortuary of the DSR District Headquarters Hospital here.Divisional Railway Manager Pradeep Kumar said the Commissioner of Railway Safety conducted an inquiry on August 2 and 3. He recorded the statements of railway officials, the Government Railway Police, the Railway Protection Force, the district administration and the Police and Fire departments.Of the eight injured being treated at the Narayana Hospital, the condition of four is serious.An injured passenger, Kumud Kumar Bansal of Agra, is expected to be discharged on Monday.Mr. Bansal faced money shortage as the compensation of Rs. 25,000 given by the Railways was exhausted. His relatives had sought the help of officials to take him back to Agra.