Even as many are concerned over the rise in train derailments, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said, “Train derailment is not an India-specific problem.”
Addressing the Rajya Sabha on day 3 of the Winter Session of Parliament on Tuesday, 19 December, Goyal stated that incidents of derailments have seen a sharp decline, with no new reports of accidents or mishaps in the recent past, ANI reported.
In a move to control the damage, Goyal was quick to point out that derailments were not exclusive to Indian territory, but countries “boasting of sophisticated infrastructural facilities were not immune to it.”
Goyal, who assumed office after the exit of his predecessor Suresh Prabhu following a string of derailments, said that the progress has been “remarkable and noticeable.”
Goyal’s claims were validated after at least six people were killed after an Amtrak train derailed and fell off a bridge in Seatte, United States. According to The Guardian, the Amtrak train was carrying 80 passengers and five on-duty crew on board, when the train derailed and 13 carriages fell off the tracks.
France Tops the List
A fact sheet compiled from a number of web portals from the past seven years reflected that France topped the list of major train accidents, with as many as four major mishaps being reported between 2010 and 2017.
Standing a close second was United States, followed by Spain. Technical failures, excessive speed and frequent collisions between two commuter trains were the primary reasons for these accidents, the report stated.
According to ANI, France’s Montpellier train crash injured more than 60 people on 17 August 2016, while 11 reportedly died and 42 were injured in the Eckwersheim train derailment.
The Brooklyn train crash in the US critically injured more than a 100 on 4 January, while Spain's Santiago de Compostela derailment witnessed 77 deaths and 143 injuries.
India Absent from Global Train Accident List
The year 2017 proved to be a death knell for Indian Railways, as many intermittent incidents of technical failures led to tragedies.
In August, 23 passengers were killed and 150 injured when the Utkal Kalinga Express derailed in Uttar Pradesh. On the intervening night of 22 and 23 August, another accident saw the derailment of nine coaches of the Kaifiyat Express, in which 50 persons were injured.
Later this year, on 24 November, the Vasco Da Gama Express derailed in Uttar Pradesh, in which three passengers died and nine were injured.
But contrary to on-ground incidents, neither does the fact sheet reflect India being ravaged by any major “global train accident” in the last seven years nor does it figure in the top five of the list.
Statistics reflect a substantial drop of 42 percent (from 85 to 49) from April 2016 to November 2017 in consequential train accidents, added the ANI report.
However, according to an IndiaSpend analysis, India’s death toll from train derailments in 2016-17 is now the highest it has been in a decade.
(With inputs from ANI, IndiaSpend)
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