‘How could I eat knowing my children were going hungry?’ says Auraiya accident survivor

“I lost my brother Yogeshwar, around 35, my nephew and his son Ranjan, 19, and my cousin Kirti 32, in the accident,” says Umesh, who worked at a marble factory in Jaipur.

Umesh says he, along with 30 others from the marble factory, left on foot from Jaipur on May 14.

“We started from Jaipur and then, we were stopped at a police chowki and kept at a quarantine facility for 24 hours and then a local leader arranged a bus for us the next day. After the bus started, after around two hours, we were stopped at Bharatpur at a police check post. The police official asked the bus driver to take the bus back. Fifteen minutes later, he told us to get on to the trailer truck which was going to drop us to Gaya in Bihar,” says Umesh, who made around Rs 12,000 at the factory and sent half of it home.

“I had never left Jharkhand till December last year. I had to leave because my mother was recently diagnosed with a kidney infection and we needed money,” says Umesh, who has suffered minor injuries.

Umesh says he did not want to leave, but his wife had been asking him to come back because of the financial issues at home. “My wife was struggling. There was no problem of food at the factory premises, but how could I eat knowing my children were going hungry,” he says. Umesh used to stay at the factory along with the others who worked with him.

Asked why he did not wait to get a train from Rajasthan for his home, Umesh says, “I waited all this while, but people who worked at the factory were leaving slowly and I was feeling like I am doing something wrong for my family by staying at the factory. How long could I have waited?”

Umesh lost all his belongings in the accident. “I had kept my mobile phones, my Aadhaar card and other IDs in someone else’s bag. Now, I am hearing that the person is dead. I had Rs 2,500 too, but I guess it is gone now,” says Umesh and adds that he did not get his salary at the factory since February.

At the Pandey Guest House near JC Crossing in Auraiya, there are four others who have survived the accident and were in the trailer truck which met with the accident.

Ankush Chauhan (23), who works at a Home Décor firm in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, says he registered for the train service to take him back to Kushinagar district. “Ten days ago, I had gone to Jan sewa kendra in Bharatpur and registered myself for the train service because I wanted to return. When there is a crisis, everyone wants to go home. Why do you think people are walking for days,” says Ankush, who makes between Rs 15,000-20,000 making furniture in Bharatpur for the firm he works at. Ankush, who has studied till class V, says that he can operate a phone and read messages. “I got a message the day I registered, but after that there was no response. I went to the Jan sewa kendra again, but the person there asked me to wait for message regarding my travel which never came,” says Ankush, sitting next to his belongings, a big bag covered in white putty. Ankush has the white putty all over his clothes and even his hair.