Monday, December 31, 2012

Lifeline express crushes 6 elephants

A dead elephant lies by the railway tracks. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy
Dec. 30: Six elephants were mowed down and a train attendant was hurled to death when the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express ploughed into a herd in Odisha at 110km per hour, far above the speed limit prescribed for migration corridors.
The Howrah-originated train, eastern India’s most dependable lifeline to healthcare facilities in the south, left behind a gut-wrenching trail at Ganjam district last night, dragging a pregnant elephant for half a kilometre and ripping out its two-month-old foetus.
The dead elephants were a tusker aged 25 to 30, three female elephants aged between 45 and 47, and two babies.
The tragedy has again brought to the fore the man-animal conflict and raised questions about the efficacy of the warning systems.
Odisha forest officials said they had warned the railways of the presence of the elephants in the vicinity. But the time cited by the utility suggested a barely two-minute window between the alert and the crash.
Officials said Ranjit Jena, 24, a contractual attendant for the B1 and B2 air-conditioned coaches, died after he was probably thrown off the train while leaning out to find out the reason for the commotion. The impact of the crash would have been spread over time as the train hit the elephants one after the other, a railway official said in Calcutta.
Passengers too felt a “heavy jerk” but there was no injury, an official said. “If a train hits a single elephant, there is not much damage to the train. However, in this case, the train hit six elephants while running at a high speed. At such a high speed, there was a chance of derailment. The higher the speed, the greater the danger.”
Forest officials blamed the train’s speed. “Railway tracks cut through the migration corridor. It is one of the most perilous tracks for wild elephants. We have placed 10 signboards saying ‘Elephant Crossing Zone’ along the tracks to remind train drivers that they are supposed to keep the speed below 20kmph in this zone. But Coromandel’s speed was 110kmph at that time,” said Sudhansu Mishra, the Berhampur divisional forest officer.
The crash spot is around 40km from Berhampur.
Mishra said the railways were alerted in advance. “The ranger of the Chilika wildlife division, P.C. Guru, had informed the railway control room of the movement of the elephants in the area on Saturday night before the accident and requested the authority to instruct all drivers to move slowly.”
But R.N. Mohapatra, the chief public relations officer of East Coast Railway, said: “We received the information at 12.43am. The accident had already taken place.”
State officials said the crash took place around 12.45am — minutes after the time at which the railways claimed they were informed.

Related Posts:

  • No Pay Commission In Future New Delhi: The central government is mulling not to form any Pay Commission for increasing salaries and allowances of central government employees and and pensioners in future. The report of inflation would be submitted … Read More
  • 2 % DA wef 01.07.18 Cabinet approves additional 2 percent Dearness Allowance (DA) for Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners w.e.f. 1st July, 2018  The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Nare… Read More
  • HPC report about PR High Power Committee on HOER -PR  GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (RAILWAY BOARD)  No:ERB-1/2011/18 New Delhi dated 25.05.2011  Ministry of Railways(Railway Board) have decided to constitute… Read More
  • To Cut Cost, Railways Turn To Natural Gas India is building infrastructure, including pipelines and import facilities, to raise the share of gas in its energy mix to 15 percent in next few years from the current level of about 6.5 percent. All India | Reuters | Up… Read More
  • 7th CENTRAL PAY COMMISSION and RUNNING ALLOWANCE: 7th CENTRAL PAY COMMISSION and RUNNING ALLOWANCE: 7th Central Pay Commission was announced by UPA Government in 2013 On 04.02.2014 the them Prime Minister Sri Man Mohan Singh announced approval of 7th CPC. On 28.02.2014 Gove… Read More

0 comments:

Welcome To AILRSA....

Visitors

1156724

Admin Area

Blog Archive

AILRSA 1970 - . Powered by Blogger.

Are You Satisfied with 7th Pay commission ?

Popular Posts

Recent Posts

Text Widget

Followers

-------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------