Cell Phones To The Rescue

The railway stations somehow always manage to conjure up images of chaos, but with the anxious relatives ofpassengers of the ill-fated Rajdhani Express thronging the New Delhi and Howrah stations in search ofinformation, it was confusion confounded.

There was a steady flow of relatives of the passengers at Howrah station since the early hours of the day.But there was hardly any information available to the people desperately looking for any report about theexact nature of the accident despite the Eastern Railways opening a Special Enquiry Cell there.

"My mother was on the coach which fell into the river, but I have no information about her. Whateverinformation I have got was through the media. The railway people have not been able to give anyinformation," a worried looking young man said.

He said that earlier he had been told that a special train would start early this morning carryingrelatives, but the departure had been postponed till 12 noon.

A number of people were seen crying, while others were engaged in heated arguments with railway officialswho expressed their helplessness.

Former member of Parliament from Howrah Susanta Chakrabarty was also travelling by the train. Till nowthere was no information about him, his brother Swapan Chakrabarty said.

Former Railway minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to Howrah early morning, alsocomplained of a chaotic situation at the station with railway officials unavailable to attend to queries fromrelatives.

After more than 12 hours of the accident, railway officials were unable to give the exact number ofpassengers on the train though bookings for Rajdhani Express passengers are computerised.

The railway officials at the Howrah station could only say that 325 of the total number of passengers onboard were safe and arrangements were being made to send 250 of them to New Delhi and 75 to Kolkata accordingto their wishes.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Transport minister Subhash Chakrabarty also visited the Howrah station andinteracted with the relatives of the passengers and promised all help from the state government.

He, however, ruled out any compensation from the state government to the affected families at this stage,but said that the matter could be considered later.

The scene was no different at the New Delhi station. Relatives, media persons and others thronged theInformation Centre at the New Delhi Railway Station but were disappointed by the state of affairs.

"I have been trying to get information about my niece, but all I am being told is the status of thespecial train leaving for the accident site," said Darshan Kumar.

"The railway officials don't even know which coaches have fallen into the river, nor do they have alist of the injured passengers," he said.

Railway officials said they were cross checking the lists of those injured as there was a possibility oftwo persons having identical name, which might further lead to confusion.

"We will issue the lists only after confirmation, which may take some time to complete," theysaid.

"Free passes were issued to over 50 relatives of the victims, and a Special train has left forMughalsarai," Alok Chaturvedi, Assistant Commercial Manager, Northern Railway said, adding the trainwould halt at Tundla, Kanpur and Allahabad stations, from where free passes would be issued to people who wishto travel to the accident spot.

"The special train would take at least 12 hours to reach Mughalsarai and try to reach closer to theaccident site after assessing the conditions there," Chaturvedi said.

However, a few were reluctant to travel by train owing to the time factor involved.

"I will prefer to fly down to the nearest place and take some alternative transport as train travelwould take a lot of time," said Nikhil Batla whose brother-in-law was travelling the ill-fated trainalongwith his family.

The Information counters, set up at 2:00 AM at New Delhi were inundated with flood of calls enquiring aboutthe accident while people started visiting them since 5:00 AM, railway officials said.

Most people came to know about the tragedy early this morning either from television channels or newspaperoffices. In the end, in many cases, it was cell phones to the rescue. At least in some cases, the worriedrelatives were able to make contact with their loved ones through the mobile phones carried by them.