Page 22 - Seniors Today - April Issue

never misses an opportunity to cause havoc. As the accident was major, the train
A tunnel designed for one line, got totally
full with the smashed coaches. The coaches
now had turned into debris which looked
like a cork stopper of a bottle, a premature
superannuation. It was impossible to walk
through the tunnel to reach the other end. At
the spot, no one could walk behind anyone,
no one could lead anyone. The tunnel sang a
requiem.
Before the commencement of restoration,
we got a feeling that restoration is
impossible and we may have to leave the
coaches where they were. Of course nothing
is possible till it is done. Once the work
started, a way forward was found. Just as
a burning house provide a light for initial
firefighting, the damaged parts suggested a
method to go ahead.
The trapped people were in perfect hell,
rescuing them by gas cutting was shifting
them to a bigger hell, temporary may be.
The heat must have given pains to them but
the joy of getting free must also have burnt
out their pains. For them it was a surgery
without anaesthesia but only hope of life.
The fortunate ones could inform their
names to the PRO outside the tunnel and the
unfortunate ones became nameless bodies. It
is depressing to realise that the people who
were referred as passengers and had names,
became bodies in a short time.
A train passing through the tunnel that has been carved
through the beautiful landscape of the mountains on the
Mumbai Pune railway track
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schedule between Pune and Mumbai was
totally disturbed. The caution order referred
in railway parlance as “stop dead and
proceed” was issued to all the trains running
on the two healthy lines. I wondered
whether it tacitly suggested a presence of
dead bodies at the spot!
After the trains came to a stop, the
inquisitive few tried to get maximum out of
this brief stop crowded at the rescue spot,
in hurry to see, in flurry to forget. The press
reporters came like swarms, to make a
story for the rest of the world, easy to read,
hard to verify. Railways have entrusted the
responsibility of dealing with the press to
PRO, relieving officers on active duty, to
collect scars, to prove their merit.
The bodies were kept in a vacant space,
away from the rescue operation, till they
were shifted for the post-mortem and
police formalities. This was also the only
suitable place we could have our lunch. The
availability of field telephone at this place,
connecting the control room, suited us. The
rescue team had missed the breakfast due to
urgency to remove the trapped passengers.
Now even the bodies were removed and we
all could squat on haunches for the lunch,
with the bodies in full view. The fear and
even discomfort to have lunch with dead
bodies by our side had gone. The heap of
nameless lifeless of the asleep was more like
a war medal. It is difficult to eat with dead
body in sight, but we ate ravenously. Under
unusual circumstances, mind considers
unusual things as usual. The livings have
more requirement than the dead, the rescue
team had a minimum of three days of work
on hand and were badly in need of food.
A coach, whose body is in good condition
and the damaged bogies underneath, was
being tackled. The pieces which could be