Manchieral railway accident

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In the railway accident Manchieral derailed because of dam failure of a water reservoir in the early morning of July 9, 1987, a fast train . 70 people were killed.

Starting position

Three kilometers from the route , north of the Indian city ​​of Manchieral (alternative spellings Mancherial Manchiryal ), Telangana , is the Amaravada water reservoir. Its outflow leads into a stream called Ralavagu , over which the railway line runs with a bridge, and which flows into the Godavari River.

The Dakshin Express was on the way as train No. 12721 with 700 passengers from Hyderabad ( Secunderabad Station ) to New Delhi ( Hazrat Nizamuddin Station ). It consisted of a diesel locomotive , behind which a brake car ran, and another 17 cars . The train stopped in Manchieral as scheduled.

On July 7th and 8th, a total of about 200 mm of precipitation fell and completely filled the almost empty Amaravada water reservoir.

the accident

The Dakshin Express left Manchieral Station heading north. Due to the heavy rain , the dam of the reservoir was softened, broke and the water and mud masses ran into the bed of the Ralavagu, which had much too little capacity for such a flooding. The water masses hitting the embankment tore it away at about 4:30 a.m. for a length of about 250 meters at the moment when the Dakshin Express was traveling the place at about 60 km / h. The engine driver noticed the fault in the vacuum brake when the train was torn apart and immediately initiated an emergency brake , but could not prevent anything. Twelve wagons derailed, two of which were carried away 45 meters by the current of water - most people died here - and four wagons overturned. In their panic, a number of travelers jumped into the brook, which had swelled into a raging river and drowned in the process. Corpses were washed up to four kilometers. Only the last four wagons of the train remained on the track outside the destroyed route . The last car was reserved for a military unit . With it traveled 25 recruits of the 14th Sikh Regiment Light Infantry .

consequences

70 people were killed in the accident .

The 25 recruits from one of the last undamaged wagons provided first aid and rescued people from the river and the overturned wagons. Workers from a cement works and a mine adjacent to the accident site also provided assistance.

The South Central Railway's chief construction engineer had also traveled in one of the last undamaged cars. He ran back to the Manchieral train station to get help. It took 5 hours before the first rescue train arrived. It was not until twelve hours after the accident that the stranded passengers capable of traveling could be evacuated with two special trains to the north and south.

After the accident, electronic warning systems against sudden flooding were installed at 35 endangered locations in the Indian railway network.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Indian Railways - A political blog speaks of 53 dead.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Menon: A freak disaster .
  2. ↑ Ravi Reddy: Railway probe report on flash floods ignored . In: The Hindu v. November 5, 2005.

Coordinates: 18 ° 54 ′ 30.3 "  N , 79 ° 27 ′ 16.3"  E