Train crashes and safety improvements

We still do not know what caused this week’s German train crash in Bavaria, in which 10 people died. The trains collided head-on on a stretch of single line track, but safety precautions introduced after another fatal accident in 2011 should have made this impossible.

As a German train approaches a red signal, an alarm is supposed to go off in the driver’s cab, and if he fails to stop, the brakes are supposed to go on automatically. Since the crash, there has been speculation that a signal controller may have turned off the automatic system, or even that someone else may have sabotaged it.

Rail crashes have often provided the spur for safety innovations. So in 1989, five people were killed at Purley in South London when one train ran into the back of another after going through a red light, even though the driver’s cab was fitted with an alarm that sounded when the train was approaching the danger signal.

After that, a system called ATP (Automatic Train Protection) was introduced to apply the brakes automatically if the driver ignored a red light. But that did not prevent a crash between a passenger and a goods train at Southall in West London in 1997 (see picture) in which seven people died. Neither the alarm system nor the ATP were working. For more, see London's Disasters.

India's deadliest natural disaster - lightning

More than 30 people are reported to have been killed in lightning strikes in India - 23 in Andhra Pradesh and 9 in Orissa. Most were said to have been working in the fields during torrential monsoon rain storms.

Figures just released show that more than 2,500 people were killed by lightning in India last year, more than in any other kind of natural disaster. Next most disastrous was extreme heat with nearly 1,250 victims, though third came cold - killing more than 900.

India's National Crime Records Bureau says lightning is consistently the subcontinent's deadliest natural disaster, claiming at least 1,500 victims in every year since 2003.

In July 2011, 30 people were killed by lightning in Uganda, including 18 pupils and a teacher in a primary school (see my post of 1 July, 2011). Later that month, lightning caused a rail crash in China, when a train stalled after being struck, and another ran into its back. More than 40 people died. (see my post of 25 July, 2011) 

See also my post of 15 May 2016.

Quintinshill - Britain's worst train crash

Tonight at 2100 the BBC4 tv channel will tell the story of Britain’s worst ever rail disaster, which happened 100 years ago tomorrow. It was a three train pile-up during the First World War at Quintinshill near Gretna on the West Coast main line early on the morning of 22 May 2015, in which about 226 people died, most of them soldiers on a troop train.

The troop train was carrying about 500 men south on the first leg of their journey to Gallipoli. It was made up of gas-lit wooden coaches. Congestion in the area that morning meant that a local train was being held stationary on the main line.

The troop train ploughed into it, and then shortly after, a sleeper coming up from the south ran into the wreckage. The carriages of the troop train were soon alight, the blaze spreading with nightmare speed.

Two signalmen were blamed for the crash. One was sentenced to three years’ hard labour, and the other to 18 months in gaol, but pre-publicity for tonight’s programme suggests it may have new information on the causes.

For more on Quintinshill, see A Disastrous History of Britain.

Train terrorist attack?

More than 100 people have now died following the train crash in West Bengal which the Indian authorities are blaming on Maoist rebels (see also my blogs of Oct 5, 2009 and May 19, 2010). The Maoists have denied involvement, but the crash happened in an area where they are strong and police say they found pro-Maoist posters close to the scene.

An 18 inch section of track was missing. This derailed the Gyaneshwar Express passenger train in the Jhargram area about 90 miles west of Calcutta, causing five coaches to fall onto another track where they were rammed by a goods train.

The railways have often been selected as targets by terrorists in India. The most deadly attack came in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 when seven bombs exploded on trains during the evening rush hour. Islamic terrorists were blamed for the resulting deaths of 209 people.

Maoist terrorists were blamed for the derailment of the Rajdhani Express as it crossed a bridge near the town of Rafiganj in Bihar on September 10, 2002. At least 130 people were killed. An inquiry found the track had been sabotaged, but the rebels themselves denied being involved and some experts have cast doubt on the official explanation.

*Thanks for mentions on the following sites:-
http://www.myspace.com/martiarenax
http://www.belt.es/noticias/especial/Sistemas_emergencia/index.asp
http://www.para-web.org/viewthread.php?tid=903&page=3

Indian bridge collapses

Up to 49 building workers are feared dead after the collapse of a section of a new 100 yard bridge across the Chambai River in Rajasthan, northern India. Some of the victims were flung into the river and others buried under rubble.

The bridge was a joint enterprise between an Indian and a South Korean company. Police have arrested two project managers, and have filed charges against another dozen company officials.

India has suffered a number of bridge collapses in recent years. One of the deadliest happened near the town of Veligonda in Andhra Pradesh in October 2005, when a flash flood swept away a small bridge, and an express train was derailed killing at least 114.

In December 2006, a dozen railway passengers were killed when a bridge collapsed onto a train passing beneath at Bhagalpur in Bihar, while nine months later, in September 2007, up to 30 people died when a flyover being built in Hyderabad gave way.

Egyptian train crashes

A collision between two passenger trains in Egypt has killed at least twenty people. The accident happened when one train stopped after hitting a water buffalo about 30 miles south of Cairo, and a second ploughed into the back of it.

Egyptian railways have suffered a number of serious accidents over the last few years. Last year, more than 35 people died when a train collided with a number of vehicles on a level crossing about 270 miles north-west of Cairo. A truck had failed to stop and pushed the other vehicles onto the crossing, while in 2006, the death toll was at least 58, when a commuter train collided with another that had stopped just outside a station at Qalyoub, 12 miles from the capital.

Egypt’s worst rail accident ever, though, happened in February 2002, when fire broke out aboard a service from Cairo to Luxor about 40 miles into its journey. Unaware of what had happened, the driver sped on, fanning the flames as he went.

Witnesses saw people throwing themselves from the carriages, and soon the tracks were lined with dead and injured. An opposition newspaper, complaining of poor safety standards, said the government should find out who was responsible and “hang them in public squares”. For the story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Sabotating Palestine + strangest rail disaster

Just as US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was praising Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his commitment to peace, the Israelis were busy sabotaging any dwindling prospects there might be, with plans to build illegal settlements in the West Bank for another 73,000 people. Already 400,000 live in illegal Israeli settlements, usually built on hilltops like Crusader castles.

Having given Israel the weapons to massacre 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza and flatten their homes, shops, schools, hospitals and universities, America is now promising to pay for some of the damage, but even then it can’t resist shabby manoeuvres to try to undermine the Palestinians’ democratically elected Hamas government.

The message to the Palestinians seems pretty clear. If you follow Mr Abbas’s line, the Americans will praise you, and every day the Israelis will steal more of your land.

On this day.....65 years ago, one of the most bizarre rail disasters in history happened in a tunnel in Italy. Train 8017 which ran from Naples to Potenza had become known as the “Black Market Express” because many of its passengers were illicit traders. In the early hours of March 3, 1944, the train got stuck in the Galleria delle Armi tunnel in the Apennines, its wheels spinning helplessly on the icy track.

There were just a handful of survivors as carbon monoxide fumes killed 521 people, most of them dying quietly in their sleep.

Indian train crashes

At least 15 people were killed last night when India’s Coromandel Express train was derailed 60 miles from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa state. Hundreds of local people have been helping the emergency services to try and free people trapped in the wreckage.

India has one of the busiest rail networks in the world, carrying more than 18 million passengers every day and employing nearly one and a half million people. If also has lots of accidents – around 300 a year.

Two of the worst rail crashes in history happened in India. In 1981, a desperately overcrowded train plunged into a river in the state of Bihar, killing up to 1,000 people, while in 1995 the Puroshottam Express ploughed into another express train that had hit an animal on the tracks at Firozabad, and 358 people died.