UP train tragedy: More bodies found under debris, toll mounts to 147

Mangalore Today News Network

UP, Nov 21, 2016, DHNS: Fourteen more bodies were found under debris at the site of the Indore-Patna Express train derailment in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh and two injured passengers died in hospital, taking the death toll to 147 on Monday afternoon.

Officials fear they could find more bodies at the accident site. The derailment happened at 3.10 am on Sunday near Pukhrayan, about 100 km from Kanpur.

Instructions have been issued to rescue teams to look carefully under the debris as the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and railway teams have moved on to the work of clearing the railway track.

Prabhakar Chowdhary, Kanpur Dehat superintendent of police, said more bodies were discovered after the work to clear the track began.

“At the mortuary, there are 147 bodies and 120 of them have been identified. Post-mortem has been conducted on 105 bodies,” he said. Close to 100 bodies have been claimed and taken away following autopsy.

Till early Monday morning, army experts and NDRF teams worked on clearing the B3 coach in which some armymen were travelling. Rescuers found the bodies of three armymen — Captain Shivendu Mishra, Sumit Chahar and Jitendra Kumar.

Capt Mishra had spoken to his family members and officials before his phone went dead on Sunday evening. The mangled coach was cut open at 2am.

UP chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar met the injured at Lala Lajpat Rai hospital in Kanpur and headed to the accident site with director general of police Javeed Ahmad and principal secretary (home) Debashish Panda.