Some 600 passengers of the stranded Shanti Express are spending their second night without proper food or water — and surrounded by flood water. Authorities say there’s no way to reach them. Even the Indian Air Force (IAF) says air-lifting 600 people from a train in inclement weather could be risky and overwhelming. Since 10 am on Thursday, the Indore-Gandhinagar train has been stuck at Dakor station, where the tracks are inundated and the platform itself is under eight feet of flood water. Through the night, several of them made calls for help to police, railway authorities, anyone they knew, as the water kept rising and entering the carriages. By next morning, having run out their batteries, the cellphones were silent. The Army’s trucks, life-saving equipment and rafts are stuck on the highways, some owing to flooding, some because of traffic jams. Relief equipment was sent from Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, but is stranded a few kilometres from Dakor. Even the trucks from Vadodara haven’t reached. On Friday afternoon, after several unsuccessful attempts due to inclement weather, an air force chopper dropped food packets and water pouches on top of the train. The authorities said they hoped the passengers would be able to reach it somehow. Squadron Leader S. Namrata, who is co-ordinating the special flood relief cell of the South Western Air Command, said a chopper hovered over the train for nearly 45 minutes, dropping food and water. ‘‘Rescuing them will be a tremendous task. There are women and children inside, the aged too, and we don’t know how they’ll be able to climb to the train top. We cannot put their lives at risk,’’ said Air Marshall Satish Jain, SWAC commanding-in-chief. ‘‘We have four aircraft and half a dozen choppers at Ahmedabad and Vadodara bases to undertake any operation. More have been kept on standby at Jamnagar and Jodhpur.’’ Said Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA) co-ordinator Col G.A. Shah (Retd), ‘‘We can’t rescue them without boats, but the boats are all stuck on the way.’’ The railway authorities in Dakor are themselves in deep water. At the station, furniture, telephones, office files are all floating in the water. ‘‘Water has even entered the staff quarters,’’ said Abbasbhai Sheikh, station superintendent, who spent the night with many others on the rooftop. The Indian Express contacted a passenger, Suresh R. Parmar, on his cellphone. ‘‘We haven’t eaten anything or taken water for the last 24 hours. Everyone is in bad shape,’’ he said. A police head constable on the train, Galabhai Abhlabhai, said, ‘‘Children are making things more difficult. The toilets are stinking. Conditions are unhygienic.’’ Energy minister Saurabh Patel, who is camping in Vadodara, said there’s no way the passengers can be reached immediately. ‘‘We don’t have boats. The army’s boats are stuck in traffic jams. We asked for eight boats from Alang, even they are stranded on the highway. Unless the water level goes down, no one can go there.’’ Divisional railway manager K L Pandey, Vadodara, said the water level was going down slowly and some passengers had probably got to the platform. ‘‘But there’s water all around, and no way of reaching the station. Any evacuation work will have to being only in the morning.
