Despite the Railways’ claim of having introduced fire-retardant material in almost all its passenger coaches, three minutes were all it took for the two AC-III coaches of the 13009 Howrah-Dehradun Doon Express to get gutted in Jharkhand early this morning. Officials are clueless almost 20 hours after seven people were charred in the blaze.
Theories being floated include: covers of the switch panels of the airconditioning unit in the coaches were not locked, making the system open to tinkering; a short-circuit in the electrical system; even a half-burnt cigarette stub.
It’s learnt that the attendant of the coaches has said during questioning that passengers alerted him about the fire following which he pulled the chain and removed the fuse from the airconditioning unit.
Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said it could have been a “miscreant” who boarded the train with some “smelly substance”. A probe has been ordered, he said, without clarifying how an outsider could board a train meant to be locked from the inside in the middle of the night.
Between 2000 and 2010, Indian Railways witnessed close to 100 fire accidents on running trains. These accidents killed over 170 people and injured another 330. The Railways, over the past few years, have been switching to fire-retardant furnishing material for flooring, fabric upholstery for seats and berths, curtains, laminated sheets for wall and partition panelling, ceiling, windows and vestibules.
Fire and smoke detection alarms are still absent in AC coaches. Having tried out these alarm systems on the Bhubaneswar Rajdhani for almost a year, the Railways are yet to validate the results of the trial.
Senior officials, requesting anonymity, said that while smoke alarms is a success the world over, it may require time and effort sensitizing the public here. “With passengers often flouting non-smoking norms inside coaches, these smoke alarms can set off the panic button. A false fire alarm on a train in a zonal Railways recently led to an incident where two people jumped from their coach and were run over by a train approaching from the other side,” said an official.
Meanwhile, having dragged its feet for years, the Railways have finally managed to move on setting up a fire simulation facility at Research Designs and Standards Organisation in
A compensation of Rs 5 lakh was announced for each family of the dead and Rs 25,000 to each the injured. The Chief Commercial Manager of East Central Railway travelled on the train after it was resumed at 8.30 am and distributed Rs 25,000 each to the 48 injured.
Since April this year, there have been 82 train mishaps killing over 300 people. In comparison, there were 141 train mishaps between April 2010 and March 2011, killing 364 people.