Odisha train accident: Outside AIIMS, some wait for bodies, others sift through photos

Though the toll was initially put at 288, the Odisha government Sunday revised it downwards to 275. Many of those killed were from West Bengal and Bihar, headed towards southern cities for their livelihood.

At AIIMS, volunteers and local officials field anxious questions from those who found their relatives’ bodies: Would the state government provide free ambulances? What documents would they need? Was any ex-gratia assistance available?

At the table next to the help desk, Sagar Tudu from West Bengal’s Murshidabad was producing documents to claim the body of his brother Munsi Tudu, who was among those who had boarded the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express Friday.

Munsi, 32, worked as a mason in a construction firm in Chennai. He had promised his wife he would return on Dussehra. The family learnt of his fate from a stranger’s response to a phone call.

“After we came to know about the accident on Saturday morning, we called him. Someone else picked the phone,” said Sagar. “This person said he was speaking from Soro hospital and had taken the mobile from my brother’s pocket.”

A few meters away, a group of 12 from Boga village in West Bengal’s East Medinipur district waits for the attendant to hand them the bodies of Suman Pradhan and Rajeev Dakua. They along with three other persons — Nandan Pradhan, Shankar Pradhan and Bholanath Giri — had boarded the general bogie of the Coromandel Express.

They, too, were construction workers headed to Chennai.

“While we identified and received bodies of Nandan, Shankar and Bholanath from the Bahanaga high schools, we were not able to find bodies of Suman and Rajeev despite searching at different hospitals. At the temporary morgue in Balasore, we were informed that the bodies have been taken to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar,” said Samiran Pradhan, Suman’s brother.

Of around 100 bodies kept at AIIMS, 28 have been identified and 10 have been handed over to relatives.

The Bhubaneswar civic body’s deputy commissioner, Rajkishore Jena, is supervising the body identification and handover process. He said officials have issued a number to each body. “After their family members recognise the body, we conduct due procedure and hand it over. The Odisha government is providing free transportation to take the bodies,” Jena told The Indian Express.

But many were still unable to trace their kin. Among them is Abhijit Samai from East Medinipur, looking for his brother-in-law Shivshankar Das who had boarded the Coromandel Express.

“I have contacted some officials and checked the photographs published by the state government but have not been able to trace him. I have visited all six hospitals where bodies are kept,” said Abhijit.

It is also an impatient wait for the relatives of Amresh Kumar. The 16-year-old resident of Bihar’s Muzaffarpur had left for Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh to work in a dairy farm along with four others from his village.

“We came to know about Amresh’s death from the four other co-passengers who survived the accident and are being treated in a hospital in Bhadrak,” said Umesh Rai, his brother-in-law.

Raju Marndi, a tribal person from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, lost his father. Like others, he too was headed south for work. “My father was going to Chennai for work. He was the lone earning member of our family. After his death, we are now staring at a bleak future.”