Railway accidents

Citation

(2002), "Railway accidents", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 11 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2002.07311aac.003

Railway accidents

Railway accidents

19 June 2001 – Paddington, London, UK

Bad signalling and poor staff training led to a train collision which killed 31 people and damaged public confidence in the UK rail network, an official report said today. Lord Douglas Cullen, who led the inquiry into the 5 October 1999 crash near London Paddington Station, also found that passengers faced problems evacuating the train after the collision, which sent two fireballs through the coaches. In some cases, safety hammers were missing and exit doors did not easily open, the report found. Cullen made 88 safety recommendations, including better information for passengers, improvements in emergency exits, better training for drivers, and a national system of radio communication between train drivers and traffic signal managers. Cullen expressed confidence that his recommendations would be met, but victims of the crash said the report did not go far enough, maintaining someone should be prosecuted. The driver of a Thames commuter train went through a red light two miles west of Paddington, getting directly into the path of an incoming high-speed Great Western express. Both train drivers died in the collision at the height of morning rush hour. The light, known as Signal 109, was considered one of the 22 most dangerous train signals in the country, according to the report by government inspectors. Before the crash, there were at least two other incidents of trains passing red signals. Railtrack, the private company responsible for maintaining the nation's 20,000 miles of track and 2,500 train stations, was accused of a "lamentable failure" and "institutional paralysis" for not fixing the difficult-to-see signal. The report faulted Thames trains. It found that new drivers for Thames trains were not even taught the route in and out of Paddington Station, one of London's busiest, and concluded "that the safety culture in regard to training was slack and less than adequate". The report also criticised the training of the signal monitors, saying they were not able to react in time to stop the crash after noticing the train had passed a red light. An earlier report by the Health and Safety Executive on the 1999 crash concluded it could have been prevented by a sophisticated safety system which automatically prevents trains from going through red lights. Immediately after the accident, the government pledged to install that warning system across the rail network by 2003.

22 June 2001 – Kerala, Southern India

Three coaches of a passenger train plunged from a bridge into a river in the southern Indian state of Kerala, raising fears of heavy casualties, a federal railway official said today. The Mangalore-Chennai Mail fell into the Kadalundi River between the towns of Parappanangadi and Calicut this evening as the train was passing over the bridge, he said. The train was headed to the southern Indian city of Madras from the south-western port city of Mangalore. The official said a total of six coaches derailed as the train travelled across the bridge, of which three fell into the river. He said it was raining heavily at the scene of the accident and it was not yet known how many passengers might have been hurt.

22 June 2001 – Three carriages of a passenger train plunged off a bridge into a river in southern India today, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 200, officials said. Railway officials in Palghat, 100km from the crash site, said they had reports from the scene saying at least 19 bodies were recovered from the Kadalundi River. A local television station said at least 30 passengers were feared dead. The last three cars of the Mangalore-Chennai Mail derailed and fell more than 30m into the river as the train was crossing a bridge, said officials in Kozhikode, 20km from the site. Three other carriages also derailed and were hanging from the 366m-long bridge, which spans the river where it flows into the Arabian Sea, in the southern Indian state Kerala. Villagers in boats helped firefighters and police pull passengers from the partially submerged carriages. Crowds stood along the riverbanks to watch the rescue efforts, carried out by flashlight. Officials said rescue work was being hampered by heavy rains. The water was not very deep at the accident site and the carriages that fell into the river were only partially submerged. The train was headed from Mangalore to Madras.

23 June 2001 – Officials in the Indian state of Kerala say 64 bodies have now been recovered from the mangled wreckage of a passenger train that came off the rails on a century-old bridge yesterday. Most of the dead were in three carriages that plunged off the bridge and into the river below. Military divers were brought in to try to reach passengers trapped inside these submerged carriages. Above the surface, rescue teams using cutting gear were hampered by heavy rains. Police in Calicut, close to the scene of the accident, said at least 200 people were injured, half of them seriously. Rescue workers say the death toll is likely to rise further.

25 June 2001 – Indian Railways authorities yesterday began salvage operations to remove the carriages of the passenger train that plunged from a bridge into a river in southern India, killing 57 and injuring nearly 300. Three carriages of the mail train tumbled into the Kadalundi River. Three other carriages derailed during the accident but remain on the bridge. Cranes are being brought in to remove them. Rescue teams said they called off the operation to look for more bodies on Saturday night, saying it was not possible to enter one submerged coach because of debris in the river. They said they might find a few more bodies once the coach had been retrieved. Heavy monsoon rains had stopped the search earlier in the day. Railway authorities said that an investigation had begun into the accident but they ruled out sabotage as the cause. The ten days of repairs to the 150m bridge will cause serious disruption to the busy north-south rail corridor connecting Kerala with the rest of the country.

1 August 2001 – Tegal, Area, Java, Indonesia

A passenger train has smashed into a crowded bus on the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 13 people. Another five passengers were seriously injured in the crash in the town of Tegal, 180 miles east of Jakarta. The state Antara news agency reported that 19 people had died. Handoko, however, said only 13 people were confirmed dead. He said the accident occurred after the bus failed to stop at the railway crossing.