India train crash: How safe is the country’s rail network?
The deadly crash at Odisha’s Balasore district on Friday, which has so far claimed over 280 lives and injured 900 more, has focused attention on the safety of the railway network in the world’s second most populous country.
Run by state monopoly Indian Railways, the network is the fourth largest in the world and transports 13 million people every day as well as moving 1.5bn tonnes of freight annually along more than 40,000 miles (64,000km) of tracks.
India train scene
It comprises 14,000 passenger trains and 8,000 stations.
In recent years, money has been pumped into modernising the system, with $30bn (£24.1bn) being committed last year to spend on new trains and modern stations, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed to boost infrastructure and connectivity in the country’s fast-growing economy.
Narendra Modi at the crash site on Saturday. Pic: Government of India
Hundreds are dead and many more injured after the accident in Odisha’s Balasore district
The government’s record capital outlay for the railways, a 50% increase over the previous fiscal year, had focused on upgrading tracks, easing congestion and adding new trains, including a new, semi-high-speed train built in India called the Vande Bharat Express – or “Salute to India”.
However Friday’s deadly accident, the worst in India for almost three decades, shows that investment needs to also address safety concerns, experts say.
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At least 280 killed and hundreds injured in Odisha’s Balasore district
“The safety record has been improving over the years but there is more work to do,” said Prakash Kumar Sen, head of the department of mechanical engineering at Kirodimal Institute of Technology in central India.
“Human error or poor track maintenance are generally to blame in such crashes,” Mr Sen said.
The railways have been introducing more trains to cope with soaring demand, but the network’s workforce to maintain them has not kept pace, he said. Workers are not trained adequately or their workload is too high, and they don’t get enough rest.
The east coast route on which Friday’s crash occurred is one of the country’s oldest and busiest as it also carries much of India’s coal and oil freight.
“These tracks are very old … the load on them is very high, if maintenance is not good, failures will happen,” Mr Sen said.
India train map
Indian Railways say safety is a key focus, pointing to a low accident rate over the years.
“This question [on safety] is arising because there has been one incident now. But if you see the data, you will see that there have been no major accidents for years,” a railways ministry spokesperson said.
The number of accidents per million train kilometres fell to 0.03 in 2021-22, from 0.10 in 2013-14, the spokesperson said.
“Some malfunction has happened and that’s what the inquiry will reveal,” the spokesman said, referring to Friday’s crash. “We will find out why it happened and how it happened.”
Mr Modi at the crash site on Saturday. Pic: Government of India
From 2017 to 2021, there were more than 100,000 train-related deaths in India, according to a 2022 report published by the National Crime Records Bureau. That figure includes cases in which passengers fell from the trains, collisions, and people being mowed by speeding trains on the tracks.
Srinand Jha, an independent transport expert, said the railways have been working on safety mechanisms such as anti-collision devices and emergency warning systems but have been slow to install them across the network.
“They will always tell you that accidents are at a very manageable level because they talk about them in terms of percentages,” Mr Jha said, adding that in recent years the focus has been more on new trains and modern stations and not as much on tracks, signalling systems and asset management.
“This accident brings out the need to focus more on these aspects,” he said.
A Spanish military jet with a defence minister on board suffered a GPS “disturbance” while on the way to Lithuania, according to Spanish officials.
The military aircraft was flying near Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave on Wednesday morning when the incident is reported to have happened.
Margarita Robles was the minister on the flight, according to Spanish officials.
A commander onboard the Spanish plane said such incidents are common when flying near Kaliningrad, both for civil and military aircraft – and military satellites could also be used to navigate.
A Spanish defence ministry spokesperson said: “There has been an attempt to disrupt the GPS signal, but as our aircraft has an encrypted system, it was not affected.
“It must be common on this route and also with commercial flights. It is not because it is our aircraft.”
Read more: Who is messing with GPS signals – and why?
Ms Robles was due to have a bilateral meeting with her Lithuanian counterpart Dovile Sakaliene during a visit to the Siauliai airbase on Wednesday, according to the Spanish government’s agenda.
The plane was also carrying relatives of Spanish airmen forming part of the new NATO air defence mission on Europe’s eastern flank.
It was launched earlier this month after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace.
The Spanish contingent last week intercepted eight Russian aircraft operating over the Baltic Sea, Spain’s defence ministry added in a statement.
Ms Robles, 68, has been Spain’s defence minister since 2018.
In June, she said Spain was “absolutely committed” to NATO and the European Union.
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Ursula von der Leyen speaks in Lithuania on 1 September. Pic: AP
Then in August, the minister said Spain would work to “invigorate” the European fighter jet project, known as FCAS.
It came after Spain revealed it was no longer considering the option of buying US-made F-35 fighter jets and would refocus its defence spending on buying European-made equipment.
At the end of August, a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suffered GPS jamming as a result of suspected Russian interference, an EU spokesperson told Sky News.
Estonia and neighbouring Finland have also previously blamed Russia for jamming GPS navigation devices in the region’s airspace.
Russia has denied interfering with communication and satellite networks.
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At least 14 people have been killed in an area of Taiwan popular with tourists after Super Typhoon Ragasa lashed the island nation, with Hong Kong and mainland China braced for impact.
The powerful storm – the strongest in years – has forced thousands to flee their homes, with flights cancelled and schools and businesses shuttered as about 70cm (28 inches) of rain has fallen on eastern areas.
At least four more people were reported to have been killed in the Philippines, where nearly 700,000 people were affected by the super typhoon in the main northern region of Luzon.
The deaths in Taiwan were reported in the eastern Taiwanese county of Hualien, which is popular with tourists.
At least 129 people are missing after a town, Guangfu, was flooded by a deluge from a barrier lake which burst its banks on Tuesday afternoon.
Around 60 million tonnes of water was released, the Taiwanese government said, the equivalent of a major reservoir in southern Taiwan.
A man stands near a military vehicle on a road filled with mud brought by flooding in Hualien, Taiwan. Pic: Reuters
Taiwan’s fire department said all the fatalities and missing people are from Guangfu.
One resident, a postman who gave his family name as Hsieh, told Reuters news agency the water hit like a “tsunami” which swept his car into his living room.
Late on Wednesday morning, a new flood warning sounded in Guangfu, where shouts were heard from residents and rescuers of “the flood waters are coming, run fast”.
Elsewhere, Dama, a village of around 1,000 people, has been completely flooded.
Its chieftain, Wang Tse-an, told Reuters many locals are still stranded there, adding: “It’s chaotic now. There are mud and rocks everywhere.”
Regions across Taiwan have sent at least 340 soldiers to Hualien to help rescue efforts.
In Guangfu, troops operating from an armoured personnel carrier to avoid the thick mud on the streets went door-to-door
handing out water and instant noodles.
Ragasa is set to hit China’s Guangdong province, where more than 370,000 residents have been evacuated, on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s storm level is at its highest level of 10 as people reported being woken by fierce winds in the early hours.
Parts of a pedestrian bridge’s roof were blown away, hundreds of trees were knocked down across the city and more than 30 injured people were treated at hospitals.
A video that showed waves of water crashing through the doors of a hotel and flooding its interiors went viral in the financial hub, where warnings of hurricane-force winds of well over 120mph have been issued.
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