Injured Coromandel Express drivers stable in Odisha train accident

Bhubaneswar: The condition of injured engine driver Gunanidhi Mohanty and his assistant Hajari Behera, who are undergoing treatment at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, is stable, officials said.

Both were rescued from the Coromandel Express that derailed near Bahanaga Bazar Station on June 2 that had claimed 275 lives and left around 1,200 injured.

“Both the drivers are stable. While Mohanty was taken out of the ICU on Monday, Behera is awaiting a head surgery,” South Eastern Railway (SER) Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Aditya Choudhury told a television channel.

The families of both drivers have appealed to all for privacy and to allow them to recover physically and mentally. They claimed that the drivers could not be blamed for the mishap as they operated the locomotive as per the rules.

Earlier, the Railway Ministry had apparently given a clean chit to both of them.

The Commissioner of Railway Safety, SER Circle, which began its inquiry into the accident on Monday, will record the statements of both of them after their recovery.

A coal-laden goods train from Vizag port to Rourkela Steel Plant became the first to run on the restored tracks around 10.40 pm on Sunday night, hours after both the up line and the down line tracks were repaired.

The first high-speed passenger train - Howrah-Puri Vande Bharat Express - passed through Balasore on Monday morning through the same tracks, officials said.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was present at the accident site and waved to the drivers when the train passed through, the officials said.

The Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary goods train, derailing most of its coaches at 7 pm on June 2.

A few coaches of Coromandel toppled over the last few coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah express which was passing by at the same time. A goods train was also involved in the crash.

Investigators are looking into possible human error, signal failure and other possible causes behind the three-train crash.