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Odisha train accident survivor's nerve-chilling account: ‘Severed head…’
Rupak Das had missed his train to Puducherry and had booked a ticket in ill-fated Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express.
The horrific June 2 train accident in Odisha's Balasore is one of the deadliest India has seen in decades. The death toll in the mishap now stands at 288, as more than 1100 have been injured. But it is the trauma of the accident that has gripped the survivors who live to narrate what they went through at that moment.
Rupak Das had missed his train to Puducherry and had booked a ticket in ill-fated Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express. Hailing from Uttar Maral village in Sonitpur district of Assam, the 27-year-old had come home to drop off his pregnant wife and was returning to Puducherry to resume his work in an adhesive factory.
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“I suddenly heard a loud thud. I knew the train had derailed. I looked outside from a window and saw the engine sitting above a goods train. Even without the engine, our train moved for some time before coming to a halt”, Das told PTI.
He broke the emergency glass and fell out of the coach, followed by two more passengers who fell over him. Das recalled within seconds the Bengaluru-Howrah Express crashed into his train and his coach was almost crushed by it.
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“A severed head came rolling down like a football from the emergency window of the Coromandel Express onto my chest”, he said, adding he has not been able to eat properly after the mishap.
Das claimed he was kept at a local hospital in Balasore and was not provided any treatment. According to him, when West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the hospital, Das requested her to tell doctors for better treatment.
Das also claimed there was no communication to him by the Assam government until he made a video and uploaded on social networking platform Facebook. After the video went viral, an Assamese woman settled in Balasore met him in the hospital. She even went to the accident site, searched for his luggage and brought it back to him.
Das was shifted to Guwahati from Balasore on Monday night by the Assamese government. He is currently being treated at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). The doctors have conducted an MRI scan of his right knee after he complained. Das is being counselled to overcome the mental shock, GMCH superintendent Dr Abhijit Sarma told PTI.
