4 Signal Operators Wanted for Questioning in India Train Crash

While rescuers were still prying bodies from the twisted wreckage of two trains Tuesday, police wanted to question four railway signal operators suspected of mistakenly sending one express train hurtling into the path of another.

At least 257 bodies with torn and bloodstained clothing have been pulled from the crumpled mass of steel, wood and debris strewn through a field in this remote corner of northeastern India.

The acrid smell of burned flesh seeped from the destroyed, blackened carriages as rescuers tried to cut their way to at least 50 more trapped people, all feared dead.

Officials began to piece together just how a train traveling about 50 mph could have been diverted to a parallel track as a train was coming in the opposite direction.

Four signal operators working at the time of the accident fled the scene. Three returned to work late Tuesday, but one was still missing, officials said.

Railway Board Chairman V.K. Agarwal said the Awadh-Assam Express, bound for Guwahati in the northeastern state of Assam, was on the wrong track for between four and nine miles before colliding with the New Delhi-bound Brahmaputra Mail about 2 a.m. at Gaisal in the eastern state of West Bengal.

“Under the rules he [the driver of the Awadh-Assam Express] should have stopped the train, got down and alerted the train coming from the other side with his flasher,” Agarwal said.

Many of the 2,500 passengers aboard the trains were sleeping at the time. The collision hurled one carriage over another, crushing travelers and sparking a fire that burned others.

India’s railway minister announced his resignation Tuesday, saying the nation had not devoted enough money to upgrading its train service.

The accident “cannot be excused,” Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said in New Delhi. “It was criminal negligence, and I own moral responsibility for it.”

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee refused to accept the resignation.