Global Courant
Families of the victims of India’s worst rail disaster in two decades were still struggling to reach the town where the disaster occurred on Sunday. The delays have left many bodies unidentified and unclaimed, local officials and doctors said.
At least 275 people died in the disaster near the city of Balasore on Friday. Many of the passengers were migrant workers, students and day laborers. In and around the city in the eastern state of Odisha, the bodies of about 200 victims had yet to be claimed, officials and medics said.
Many were seriously injured in the crash, making it more difficult to identify them, and most of the victims’ families live in towns and villages hundreds of miles away and were still trying to reach the area, she added.
The state government transferred about 100 of the unidentified victims to the mortuary of the main hospital in Bhubaneswar, the state capital, on Sunday. About a dozen bodies still lay in the hallway of a small local school a few hundred meters from the disaster site, down from more than 100 on Saturday, and less than a dozen still lay in a business park in Balasore on Sunday. The whereabouts of the others were unclear.
The municipality has posted photos of the unknown victims on the business park and also posted the images online.
Authorities had placed the bodies on large blocks of ice at the industrial estate and covered them with plastic sheeting, but the ice quickly melted in the heat of about 100 degrees. Relatives who reached the business park first had to endure the trauma of watching victims’ faces on a laptop. Then, if they saw any resemblance to a loved one, they were taken to take a closer look.
Dr. Rahul Kumar, at Bhubaneswar’s main hospital, said the mortuary there was already full.
While many of the bodies require DNA testing for identification, he was one of several medics and officials who said the reason for the delay in claiming the bodies was family members struggling to reach the area.
“Most of these people are poor and it can take them days to get to Bhubaneswar or here in this city,” said Dr. Kumar.
Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said a special train had been started to transport relatives from the city of Kolkata, in neighboring West Bengal, to Odisha. The local government in Odisha also announced the operation of a free bus service on the disrupted train route.
