Gap between wall & coach is less than an arm’s length
Ekatha.Ann@timesgroup.com 26.07.2018
K Satheesh, a juice vendor on platform 2 of St Thomas Mount station, needed no second guess about the reason commuters were rushing towards the opposite platform on Tuesday.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened. That wall has killed others,” said the 42-yearold former railway employee. But Satheesh wasn’t prepared for the scene he saw when the crowd parted. “I saw a leg on the track. I saw a bloodied hand holding the fence as one of the injured tried to heave himself onto the platform,” he said.
A day after four youngsters travelling on the footboard of a suburban train died at St Thomas Mount Railway Station, TOI visited the spot. Every time a suburban train pulled to a stop on platform 2 -- where Tuesday’s train was supposed to stop – passengers craned their necks to see the red post of the fence on platform 3.
Around 11am, a team of officials led by K A Manoharan, commissioner of railway safety, arrived. He was accompanied by people from the engineering department and operations department.
“The accident happened because the train was directed to a different track. We shall conduct a detailed inquiry,” he told reporters. The inquiry, which is likely to be held on July 30, will evaluate if the fence violated safety parameters and if railways resorted to any other unsafe operations which might have caused the accident.
Another inquiry by Southern Railway is underway for which officials tried to recreate Tuesday’s scene. Some of them heaved bags on their back to see if there was a possibility that they could have got entangled in the fence while on the footboard. They measured the gap between the train and the wall: It was less than an arm’s length. When TOI asked for the exact measurement, one official said it was “less than a metre”, another said it was “around a foot”.
Chennai DRM Naveen Gulati told TOI that the fence was built as per safety parameters. This was even as the station smelled heavily of antiseptic used to wash the blood from the tracks. The victims’ footwear remained strewn along and around the wall.
Regular commuters said the measurements had come too late. “What is the point after people have died,” said K Sumathi, who commutes between Guindy and Alandur. “Officials can’t wash their hands off by saying travelling on the footboard is illegal. They knew people were hanging off the doors. Why didn’t they inform them when they changed the line?” she said.
(With inputs from Siddharth Prabhakar)
FRAME BY FRAME: Railways officials re-enact sequences that led to Tuesday’s accident at St Thomas Mount station
Ekatha.Ann@timesgroup.com 26.07.2018
K Satheesh, a juice vendor on platform 2 of St Thomas Mount station, needed no second guess about the reason commuters were rushing towards the opposite platform on Tuesday.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened. That wall has killed others,” said the 42-yearold former railway employee. But Satheesh wasn’t prepared for the scene he saw when the crowd parted. “I saw a leg on the track. I saw a bloodied hand holding the fence as one of the injured tried to heave himself onto the platform,” he said.
A day after four youngsters travelling on the footboard of a suburban train died at St Thomas Mount Railway Station, TOI visited the spot. Every time a suburban train pulled to a stop on platform 2 -- where Tuesday’s train was supposed to stop – passengers craned their necks to see the red post of the fence on platform 3.
Around 11am, a team of officials led by K A Manoharan, commissioner of railway safety, arrived. He was accompanied by people from the engineering department and operations department.
“The accident happened because the train was directed to a different track. We shall conduct a detailed inquiry,” he told reporters. The inquiry, which is likely to be held on July 30, will evaluate if the fence violated safety parameters and if railways resorted to any other unsafe operations which might have caused the accident.
Another inquiry by Southern Railway is underway for which officials tried to recreate Tuesday’s scene. Some of them heaved bags on their back to see if there was a possibility that they could have got entangled in the fence while on the footboard. They measured the gap between the train and the wall: It was less than an arm’s length. When TOI asked for the exact measurement, one official said it was “less than a metre”, another said it was “around a foot”.
Chennai DRM Naveen Gulati told TOI that the fence was built as per safety parameters. This was even as the station smelled heavily of antiseptic used to wash the blood from the tracks. The victims’ footwear remained strewn along and around the wall.
Regular commuters said the measurements had come too late. “What is the point after people have died,” said K Sumathi, who commutes between Guindy and Alandur. “Officials can’t wash their hands off by saying travelling on the footboard is illegal. They knew people were hanging off the doors. Why didn’t they inform them when they changed the line?” she said.
(With inputs from Siddharth Prabhakar)
FRAME BY FRAME: Railways officials re-enact sequences that led to Tuesday’s accident at St Thomas Mount station
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