Faulty wheel fails Mysore train, kills 4 women

Tragedy struck barely 15 minutes after the train rolled out of Mysore at 6 am. Three of the victims were teachers at Ramanagara — H.V. Prabha Mani (40), Syed Tasin (22) and Hasina Banu (42) — and one was a 42-year-old bank employee Manjula. Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, who was in Bangalore for the signing of a MoU on the Hassan-Mangalore railway link, attributed the derailment to a faulty wheel disc. He had sent deputy, Basana Gouda Yatnal, for an on-the-spot assessment.

‘‘Wheel disc failure is said to be the reason for the mishap,’’ Kumar told reporters in Bangalore after Yatnal ruled out sabotage. A probe team, headed by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (Southern Circle), will study whether the crack in the wheel ‘‘was due to manufacturing defect or maintenance fault’’. A Railways press release also mentioned the ‘‘breakage of wheel disc’’ in one of the coaches as the ‘‘prima facie’’ cause for the accident. The disc had been manufactured at Durgapur Steel Plant.

Later, Kumar announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 1 lakh to each of the families of those killed, Rs 50,000 to those seriously injured and Rs 5,000 to those with minor injuries.

Soon after hearing of the derailment, Chief Minister S.M. Krishna had sent Education Minister Prof B.K. Chandrashekar to the accident site. ‘‘My heart goes out to the families of those killed in the mishap,’’ Krishna said. The injured have been identified as Sreeramalu, Raju, Krishna, Girish Babu, Lakshmamma, Hanumantha, Suma, engine driver Thimme Gowda and his assistant Umesh Kumare.

They were moved to the Government Hospital, Railway Hospital and B.G.S. Apollo Hospital in Mysore. Yatnal has assured action against some officials, following complaints that the rescue team from Mysore arrived late.

According to eye-witness Narayana, who was working in the paddy field, four of the bogies came ‘‘crashing down with a loud noise’’. He suffered minor injuries as stones flew towards him.