Bhubaneswar: The condition of injured engine driver Gunanidhi Mohanty and his assistant Hajari Behera, who are undergoing treatment at the AIIMS here, is stable, officials said. Both were rescued from the Coromandel Express that derailed June 2 near Bahanaga Bazar Station that had claimed 275 lives and left around 1,200 injured.
“Both the drivers are stable. While Mohanty was taken out of the ICU Monday, Behera is awaiting a head surgery,” South Eastern Railway (SER) Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Aditya Choudhury was quoted as saying by a television channel.
Families of both the drivers have appealed to all for privacy and allow them to recover physically and mentally. They claimed that the drivers could not be blamed for the mishap as they operated the locomotive as per rules. Earlier, the Railway Ministry had apparently given clean chit to both of them.
The Commissioner Railway Safety, SER Circle, which began its inquiry into the accident Monday, will record the statements of both of them after their recovery.
A coal-laden goods train from Vizag port to Rourkela Steel Plant became the first to run on the restored tracks around 10.40pm on Sunday night, hours after both the up line and the down line tracks were repaired.
The first high speed passenger train – the Howrah-Puri Vande Bharat Express – passed through Balasore Monday morning through the same tracks, officials said. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was present at the accident site and waved to the drivers when the train passed through, the officials said.
The Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary goods train, derailing most of its coaches at 7.00pm June 2. A few coaches of Coromandel toppled over the last few coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah express which was passing by at the same time. A goods train was also involved in the crash.
Investigators are looking into possible human error, signal failure and other possible causes behind the three-train crash.
