- Most of the Gamkhwar railway accidents in India date back to the year 2000. At that time there was no mobile or internet technology so communication was limited. There was no technology for security, so accidents kept happening. After the year 2000, the prevalence of new technology has reduced such serious accidents. Nowadays, technology has advanced so much that such accidents should not happen.

Train accidents have not happened in India for a long time so it was relaxed but suddenly this order was broken and all efforts were over. 261 people have died and more than 900 passengers have been injured in a freak Accident where three trains collided in Odisha's Balasore. Out of these 650 people are admitted to the hospital. The condition of many of them is critical, so there is fear that the death toll will cross 300.

The Yeswantpur-Howrah Express derailed in the Gamkhwar accident near Balasore's Bahanga Bazar station at around 7 pm on Friday, causing some of its coaches to overturn on the other track. At the same time Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express was coming on another track. A coach of the Yeswantpur-Howrah train collided with the Coromandel train, which also derailed and collided with a freight train lying on the third track.

In this triple train accident, the passengers sitting in both the trains lost their lives. A total of 3400 people were traveling in both the trains and more than 1200 of them were victims of the accident, the seriousness of the accident can be understood only from this. According to the people who witnessed the accident, the accident was so serious that scenes like those seen only in movies were created.

Some coaches of the Coromandel train even climbed on top of the goods train. A train collided with another train so violently that the fronts of the coaches were blown away. The canisters flew into the air with tremendous speed and then came crashing down on the Railway tracks.

One compartment flew in the air and fell on the compartment of another train, in which the people sitting in the compartment were buried and died. Many cans were flattened to such an extent that gas cutters had to be used to cut them. People were sandwiched between the bins and the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.

This serious accident has made both the Odisha government and the central government run. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reached Balasore in the evening while Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited the accident site and instructed to speed up the relief work. Balasore accident is very big because 300 people die simultaneously in an accident is not a small thing. It is not that there have not been accidents on the Gamkhwar Railway in India before, but it is a shame that such avoidable accidents happen in the age of technology.

Before this, in Bihar in 1981, more than 750 people died when an overflowing train plunged into the Bagmati river. In 1995, Purushottam Express collided with Kalindi Express on the railway track near Firozabad, killing 305 people. In 1999 itself, 285 people were killed when the Brahmaputra mail rammed into the Awadh Assam Express standing at the Gaisal railway station in West Bengal. In 1998, 212 people were killed when the Jammu Tawi-Sildah Express collided with three coaches of the Frontier Golden Temple Mail lying on a cliff near Khanna in Punjab.

These are just a few examples, but most of the Gamkhwar railway accidents are from the twenty-first century, i.e. before the year 2000. At that time there was no mobile or internet technology so communication was limited. There was no technology for security, so accidents kept happening. After the year 2000, these types of serious accidents have decreased since the dominance of new technology.

In the last one decade, there has not been a serious accident except the Indore-Rajendranagar Express derailment in Pukhyaranya near Kanpur in 2016 in which 152 people died. Before that, in 2010, 148 people died when the Jnaneshwari Express collapsed. Meaning, such a serious accident happens only once in a decade. However, seeing that technology has advanced a lot in a decade, such accidents should not happen.

The Ministry of Railways has ordered an inquiry into the incident so it will be known whose fault caused the accident but this time is not to find fault but to think about what to do to prevent such accidents in future. Action should be taken against those responsible for the accident but more important thing is to think about the future.

The central government has started new superfast trains in the country. They have new technology so the risk of accidents is less but even in old trains technology should be upgraded so that such incidents do not happen again.

In developed countries, there is a separate body called Railway Safety Agency to monitor the safety of trains. This agency regularly checks all types of security and takes necessary measures. This agency looks after everything from personal safety of travelers to accident prevention. Indian Railways does not have such a system. Among the countries with the largest railway network in the world, India should set up such a separate system so that travelers are safe.

Shastriji-Nitish accepted moral responsibility and resigned

In the wake of the Gamkhwar train accident in Odisha, the message that Lal Bahadur Shastri had resigned due to the accident in the past has gone viral. In August 1956, when 112 people died in a train accident in Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, Shastriji accepted his moral responsibility for the accident and resigned from the post of Railway Minister. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not accept this resignation but Shastri's stance was widely praised.

A few months after this incident, in November 1956, in the second railway accident in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu, in which 144 people died, Shastriji again accepted his moral responsibility and resigned from the post of Railway Minister. Nehru did not accept this resignation but Shastri insisted on resigning. A number of MPs submitted that the moral responsibility of the accident lies not with Shastri but with the Railway Board officials and hence action should be taken against them. The MPs requested Shastri to take back his resignation but Nehru finally had to accept his resignation as Shastri refused.

Like Shastri, Nitish Kumar also resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1999, accepting moral responsibility for the train accident in West Bengal's Ghaisal. On August 2, 1999, Brahmaputra Mail and Oudh Assam Express collided, killing 285 people.

Question against train protection system 'Kavach'

Following the accident in Odisha, an old video of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has gone viral. This is a video of Vaishnav launching 'Kavach', an automatic train protection system designed to prevent railway accidents. In the video, Vaishnav explains how the 'shield' works by showing two toy trains. Vaishnav says that, in the event that two trains come on the same track, the 'shield' system installed in the train will apply the brake installed near the driver, so there will be no accident. This video is from March 2022.

After the Balasore train accident, the opposition has questioned that when a train derailed and crossed another track, where was the 'cover' system? A war has also erupted between BJP supporters and BJP opponents on social media over this issue.

However, preliminary findings revealed that there was no 'shield' system in this train. Last year 'Kavach' was announced but so far only two trains have been fitted with 'Kavach' system, other trains are not protected against this type of risk.