Patna, December 3
The Commissioner, Railway Safety, Mr R.P.Agarwal, reportedly reached Bhagalpur from Hyderabad today to hold a probe into the train mishap after a 150-year-old road overbridge came crashing down on the sleeper class coach S8 of the 3071 Howrah-Jamalpur Superfast Express yesterday.
The death toll in the mishap rose to 34 today, with one more person succumbing to his injury in a Bhagalpur hospital.
Nineteen others persons, including four children and seven women, were also injured.
The Chief Public Relations Officer of the Eastern Railway, Mr S. K. Majumdar, said so far only 13 bodies had been identified.
The track was cleared of the debris around 5.50 am and the first train, the Guwahati-Delhi Brahmaputra
Mail, crossed the track where the accident had taken place around 9.15 a.m.
Mr. R.P.Agarwal reached Bhagalpur after the Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav ordered a probe into the accident by the Railway Safety Commissioner.
The overbridge, known as Ulta
Pul, was abandoned four years ago and the bridge was being dismantled for the last three days.
Meanwhile, prima-facie the probe into the mishap indicated that the tragedy was waiting to happen as Ulta Pul was beyond repair and required urgent replacement.
Way back in 1999, the then Railway Safety Review Committee headed by Justice H.R.Khanna had produced a detailed report, identifying nearly 300 bridges across the country as "weak and distressed" which were in urgent need of replacement.
The Ulta Pul of Bhagalpur was one of them.
Sources in the East-Central Railway (ECR) said that going by the report prepared by the Standing Committee on Railway Safety ,the vast 63,000 km network of the Indian Railways use over 1,20,000 railway bridges.
It was learnt that of these 1,20,000 bridges, nearly 44 per cent of the bridges were more than 100 years old and over 60 per cent were 80 years old.
Ironically, despite a huge allocation of Rs 17,000 crore for repair work, bridges like the Ulta Pul continue to cause worry to
passengers.
What is more shocking to note is that irrespective of over 250 such mishaps since 1986, the Railways under the leadership of different ministers could not utilise the full allocation to repair or replace the weak bridges, having a direct bearing on
passengers’ safety.
From 2003 to 2004, the Railways had reportedly returned over Rs 60 crore allocated for bridge repairs. Again from 2004 to 2005, the ministry initially had asked for Rs 761 crore, but later it was brought down to Rs 488 crore.
For the current year, the Railways planned Rs 595 crore expenditure to repair and replace old bridges.
