Local people block railway tracks and prevent trains from passing

Five persons, including a three-year-old boy, were killed when their car was hit by a train at an unmanned level crossing close to the Aroor railway station, some 15 km from here, on Sunday afternoon.

The No.12998 Hapa-Tirunelveli superfast express hit the car around 2.45 p.m., a few minutes after leaving the Ernakulam station. The car had apparently attempted to cross the railway track and the driver had not noticed the train heading for its next stop at Alappuzha.

All the five in the car, including the owner-driver, died. While three men died instantaneously, local people and the police rushed the boy and one man to a nearby hospital. But the two were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

The five dead were identified as Kalathil Sumesh (26) of Aroor; Nefin (3), son of Sumesh's friend Neythupurackal Vincent; Chellappan (65) of Poochakkal; Karthikeyan (70) of Elamkunnapuzha; and, K.A. Narayanan (65) of Perumbalam. The four had been heading for a social function and Sumesh had reportedly taken Nefin along out of affection.

Children who had been playing close-by when the collision occurred told The Hindu that they heard a loud thud as the train passed and saw a piece of the car go up and hit the overhead power cable along the track.

The pieces landed some 100 metres from the crossing. Some of the debris, along with pieces of flesh of the victims, fell in the swamp on the left of the track. Pieces of clothes and smaller parts of the car were strewn around the swamp which was full of water lilies. Human flesh and blood were scattered along the left side of the track and the people gathered there stepped on them without realising this. A slice of rose-coloured brain, with no blood stain on it, lay in between the two tracks.

A woman in the house nearby the track said she was about to sit for lunch when she heard a big thud, the screeching noise of the train's breaks and a roar of people. When she came out of her house, she saw people running towards the railway crossing.

Early warning

A local man said he saw a couple of people waving at the car driver cautioning him of the approaching train, but the driver had not obviously seen them.

A passenger who got down from the train immediately after the collision said one man and the boy had been thrown out of the car in the collision. The man was lying dead on the edge of the swamp and his brain was squeezed out of his head. Someone had rushed towards the boy hoping to save him, the passenger said. He showed over a dozen pictures he had shot on his camera phone in the first few minutes of the accident.

In just half an hour after the accident, around 500 people, mostly locals, had gathered at the accident site. They were furious that the Railway authorities had not posted a guard at the busy bisection. The narrow Village Office Road cut through the railway tracks and because of a curve passing, trains were not visible to those crossing the tracks, they pointed out. They complained that despite their several demands in the past, the authorities had not finished the work on the level crossing.

The angry mob blocked the railway tracks and prevented a train from passing.

Ministers visit site

The people raised slogans against the apathy of Railways. Union Minister of Sate for Power K.C. Venugopal and Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash, who visited the accident site in about an hour, had to face the wrath of the people. The Ministers assured the people that they would pressure Railways to immediately post guards at the crossing. Bodies of two victims were later moved to the Ernakulam General Hospital while those of the other three were sent to the taluk hospital at Cherthala.