Jena said that 205 bodies of the total 288 have been identified so far and handed over to their families.
Odisha is facing a morgue crunch as a large number of unclaimed dead bodies from Balasore's triple train accident, have piled up at its mortuaries.
'When I talk to my colleagues in the Railways, they say 'aadmi toh bohot hai, lekin matlab ka aadmi ek bhi nahi hai (the Railways has a bloated workforce, but doesn't have employees with have the skillsets that matter)'.'
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday sought a CBI probe into Friday night's horrifying accident which left 275 people dead and 1,100 injured.
2016: On November 20, the Indore-Patna Express 19321 derailed close to Pukhrayan in Kanpur, India, killing at least 150 passengers and injuring more than 150.
Following the win, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had announced a cash reward of Rs 1 crore for the team, from which Igor Stimac's wards have "collectively" decided to donate Rs 20 lakh.
As the year 2023 comes to an end, a look at some newsy events that shaped the world in the first half of the year.
Gitanjali Datta of Maniabanda in Cuttack district had claimed that her husband Bijay Datta had died in the accident on June 2 and had even identified a body as her husband's.
The case was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 337, 338, 304A (causing death by negligence) and 34 (common intention) and sections 153 (unlawful and negligent action endangering lives of Railway passengers ), 154 and 175 (endangering lives) of the Railways Act.
Odisha train crash is one of the deadliest such accidents since independence.
Repair work at a level crossing near Bahanaga Bazar railway station in Odisha's Balasore where the June 2 train crash took place was allegedly conducted without the approval of senior divisional signal and telecom engineer and without an approved circuit diagram.
Railways shunted out 5 top officials who are responsible for operations, signalling and safety.
The process of cremation of unidentified bodies of the train accident which began on Tuesday evening was completed at about 8 am on Wednesday, BMC Mayor Sulochana Das said.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
As the train which started from Howrah slowed down as a mark of caution running across freshly repaired tracks, a few muttered 'Jagannath, Jagannath', the name of the presiding deity of Puri, the destination of the train, but most were too stunned to speak.
Two days after one of India's worst train accidents at Bahanaga Bazar in Odisha's Balasore district, two railway tracks have been made fit to carry trains after bulldozers and cranes removed capsized coaches on the main trunk line connecting eastern and southern India.
There were multiple claimants for 15 bodies and the DNA reports were received from the central laboratory in Delhi after about 20 days, officials said.
The railways has initiated a high-level probe into the train crash in Odisha to be headed by the commissioner of railway safety, South Eastern Circle.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday started its investigation into alleged criminal negligence leading to the Balasore train accident which claimed 278 lives after registering a first information report (FIR), officials said.
The CBI has charged the accused under Indian Penal Code Section 304 part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), Section 34 read with 201 (common cause read with destruction of evidence) and 153 of the Railways Act.
Five railway employees, including the station master of Bahanaga Bazar, are being investigated in connection with the three-train accident in Odisha's Balasore district that claimed 288 lives, official sources said on Monday.
The Balasore district hospital and Soro hospital, where the injured have been rushed after a triple train accident, are bursting at their seams as the huge flow of patients has crammed up every room, with patients spilling onto corridors.
'We don't know how and why this happened as the route interlock signal works fine millions of times every day across India.'
Howrah resident Helaram Mallik travelled 235km to Balasore to recover his son alive from a makeshift morgue where he was kept with the bodies of those killed in the triple train accident.
Three members of the same family survived the horrific train accident in Odisha's Balasore and returned to their home in West Bengal.
Another woman from Malda district said that her son was killed in the accident.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday took into custody three railway personnel in connection with the June 2 Balasore train accident, making its first arrests in the case, officials said.
Nine National Disaster Response Force teams were deployed for rescue operations following one of the worst railway disasters in India that killed at least 278 people and injured more than 900. According to official data, the force rescued 44 victims and retrieved 121 bodies from the spot.
In a letter to general managers of all zones, the Railway Board has directed that a safety drive should be launched immediately with special focus on all 'goomties' (rooms along tracks) housing signalling equipment within station limits.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled central government alleging that there were attempts to suppress the cause of the train accident in Odisha.
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
In his letter to Modi, Kharge hit out at the railway minister for seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe, saying the law enforcement agency is meant to investigate crimes, not railway accidents.
'To avoid accountability and cover the mismanagement of the head of the department, they create this kind of sabotage theory.' 'If it's a sabotage theory, then the higher-level officials can go scot-free.'
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
'Because of the callous attitude of the railway administration, they don't take care of safety.'
Human cries for help tore through the silence of the night, as the superfast Coromandel Express came to a screeching halt, after its bogies were derailed near Jajpur Road station in Orissa on Friday night. "It was very dark and I could hear the shouts of many for help. There was utter chaos," Anupam Nayak, who was traveling to Cuttack from Howrah in the Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express, said.
At least 10 passengers were feared killed and 80 injured when 14 bogies of the Coromandel Express derailed near Bajpur in Orissa on Friday night. The train was on its way to Howrah station in Kolkata from Chennai Central. According to preliminary reports, several bogies piled up against each other when the bogies were derailed. Several passengers of the super-fast train are believed to be trapped.
Train services resumed on the busy Howrah-Chennai route on Sunday, 36 hours after the derailment of the Coromandel Express, which claimed nine lives and severely affected the rail traffic. One track was thrown open to traffic today morning after removal of all mangled bogies and repair of power channels and rails near the Jajpur-Keonjhar Road railway station, about 100 km from Bhubaneswar, East Coast Railway officials said.
A day after the gruesome train tragedy in Orissa, the Railways has scaled down the death toll from 16 to nine.
Anxious relatives staged a demonstration near the inquiry counter at Howrah railway station on Friday night, in the absence of any information about the number of passengers killed or injured in the derailment of 18 bogies of Coromandel Express, near Jajpur Road railway station in Orissa. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the main inquiry counter at Howrah railway station to get information about the incident. They also wanted to know if any relief train has been sent.
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