Today, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw investigated the accident site in Balosara where three trains collided last night in which 288 people have been dead and 900 are injured. During the investigation he said, in addition to the independent investigation by the rail safety commissioner, a thorough high-level investigation would be performed. He assessed the situation and declared that the administration is concentrating on rescue and relief efforts.

The chief minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik announced on Saturday that the state will observe a day of mourning and that there would be no celebrations.

The injured passengers will receive the best care possible in Cuttack, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Bhubaneswar, or the hospitals in Kolkata, according to the railway minister.

According to Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena, the rescue effort is still going on inside one of the damaged coaches that collided with another bogie.

The autopsies of the victims have begun in several locations. The bodies are being given to the victims who have been recognised and whose relatives are in the room. According to Jena, every effort is being made to finish the victims’ postmortems as soon as possible.

Around 7 p.m. on Friday, the train crash occurred close to the Bahanaga Baazar station in the Balasore district, which is located around 250 kilometres south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar. Ten to twelve coaches of the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed and fell onto the other track, causing the accident. The Coromandel Express’s bogies were then hit by the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, causing three to four of its carriages to derail.

According to a statement from the Indian Railways, A M Chowdhary, Commissioner of Railway Safety, South East Circle, will be in charge of the investigation into the train disaster.

On Friday evening, a tragic train accident took place in Odisha’s Balasore, when two Express trains collided that has claimed the lives of 288 people and more than hundreds of passengers are left inured, the rescue operations is underway.

Railway Spokesperson Amitabh Sharma said, at around 7 PM in the evening, about 10-12 coaches of the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed and fell on the opposite track, after a while, the Yeshwantpur-Howrah Express rammed into the derailed coaches of Coromandel express that resulted to the derailment of its own coaches.

The dreadful accident has taken place near the Bahanga railway station in Balasore district of Odisha, which is around 120 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar.

Reports said, a three-way accident took place and involves a good carriage train in the accident.

While no official confirmation has been received on the total death toll, reports claimed more than 50 people are already dead with the numbers substantially increasing and around 300 are injured.

Some local channels of Odisha have reported, over 70 dead and around 350 injured.

The Central and state government along with the railway department have mounted a huge rescue operation but is finding it extremely difficult to clear and rush the injured to the nearest medical facilities.

National and State Disaster Management teams along with fire fighting teams and other rescue operation teams are already in place carrying out the rescue operations.

At-least 50 ambulances and 15 fire operations team from the neighbouring districts were rushed to save the trapped passengers, said to be in hundreds in number.

The government has also issued dedicated helpline numbers for various affected regions.

Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed about compensation to the victims. Rs 10 lakh is announced for the deceased family members, Rs 2 lakh for critically injured and Rs 50,000 for minor injured victims.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik rushed to the state control room to personally take stock of the situation and direct measures for the rescue and relief operations.

Patnaik informed he will fly to the spot in the first thing in morning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his grief over the terrible accident expressed his thoughts with the bereaved families and prayed for the speedy recovery of the inured.

PM Modi assured all possible assistance to the affected.

After the stunning silence from Indian cricketers over women wrestlers’ protest against sexual harassment by Wrestling Federation of India chief, the World Cup 1983 winning team has come out in support of the protesting athletes.

They issued a joint statement on Friday condemning the way protesting wrestlers were manhandled by Delhi Police on May 28. The statement has been put out in the name of current BCCI boss Roger Binny, veteran cricketers Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, K Srikkanth, Syed Kirmani, Yashpal Sharma (now deceased), Madan Lal, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Sandeep Patil and Kirti Azad. Kapil Dev said the statement on the wrestlers is not an individual thing but the whole of the 1983 team stands by it.

The veteran cricketers said they were concerned by the fact that the wrestlers were going to immerse their hard-earned Olympic medals into the Ganga. They were shocked that the situation has come to such a pass that wrestlers are thinking of dumping their hard-earned medals into the Ganga because their medals were a result of years of effort, sacrifice, determination, and grit. The cricketers were unanimous that those medals don’t belong to the agitated wrestlers alone but with the nation’s pride and joy. They said they are distressed and disturbed at the unusual visuals of champion wrestlers being manhandled.

The protest has also been heartbreaking, the statement said, since it wrestlers who should be on the practice mat are out on the roads. The 1983 team added they are not in favour throwing their medals away because earning medals isn’t easy and urged the Government to sort out the issue as soon as possible.

Champion wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia have been protesting in Delhi, demanding the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers. Last Tuesday, they went to Haridwar to immerse their medals in the Ganga but changed plans with the intervention of farmer’s leaders. 

Under the leadership of Kapil Dev, the Indian cricket team won the country’s first World Cup trophy in 1983 beating the then cricketing superpower, the West Indies.