Authorities in India addressed today to the families of more than 100 people whose bodies have not been identified and lie in hospitals and morgues after the country’s deadliest rail accident in more than two decades, which killed 275 people.

The accident occurred on Friday when a passenger train collided with a freight train at a speed of 130 kilometers per hour. Three carriages fell onto adjacent railroad tracks, hitting the back of an express train on the Bangalore-Kolkata route in the eastern state of Odisha.

After a relentless effort to rescue survivors and clear and repair tracks, passenger and commercial trains began to pass through the site of the train tragedy again on Sunday evening.

As of yesterday, about 100 bodies had not been identified, a senior state health official told Reuters.

Vijay Kumar Mohapatra, head of Odisha’s health department, said authorities were trying to procure refrigerated containers to store the bodies.

“An autopsy cannot be performed if the bodies are not identified,” Mohapatra said, explaining that state regulations do not allow an autopsy of an unclaimed body until 96 hours have passed.

At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the largest hospital in Orissa’s capital, Bhubaneswar, giant screens are displaying photographs of the dead to help desperate families search hospitals and morgues for their loved ones.

A detailed list has been compiled with the specific characteristics of each deceased, but relatives will first have to look through – no matter how horrific the sight – photographs of the bodies to find their missing relatives, a senior US police official told Reuters.

The trains have carried passengers from several states, and officials from seven states (Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) are in Balasore to help relatives identify and collect their loved ones, the official added. police.

The Railway Board of India has asked the Federal Central Bureau of Investigation to take over the investigation into the causes of the crash, while a separate investigation was launched yesterday under the leadership of the Commissioner for Railway Safety in the region.

A team from the Federal Central Bureau of Investigation will travel to the scene of the tragedy today and begin an investigation.

The railroad police filed criminal negligence charges without naming suspects.

According to the preliminary report, the most likely cause of the accident was a malfunction in the signaling system, which suggests that the Coromandel Express, heading south towards Chennai from Calcutta, had crossed onto another track where a commercial train was already stationed and collided. at a speed of 130 kilometers per hour on a commercial train.

Three carriages fell onto adjacent railroad tracks, hitting the back of an express train on the Bangalore-Kolkata route.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}