Hirakhand Express accident: Survivors recount near-death experience

BHAWANIPATNA: A couple of Bhawanipatna had a narrow escape in one of the worst-hit S9 coach of the Hirakhand Express which derailed in Andhra Pradesh on Saturday night.

Hiring a jeep with seven other victims, some of them injured, they reached their home here on Sunday morning.

Sanjay Dutta (46) and his wife Jhili were going from

Bhawanipatna to Bhubaneswar

for attending a wedding at Choudwar.

“We had just switched off lights after dinner at Rayagada when there was loud sound. The coach was seemed to have been tossed in the air. Before I could understand what had happened, screams of people filled the air amid darkness,” he recalls.

While Sanjay was sleeping at seat no 8 his wife Jhili was sleeping at seat no 5. “Luggage and fellow passengers fell on me. I used my mobile phone light to check my wife as the train light went off. The coach engulfed with dust,” he said.

“Some of us who were almost unhurt tried to pull the children and women out. About 20-22 women and children were brought out. Two gates on one side of the train did not open because those were pressed in the earth,” he said.

“At least six persons from our coach were dead. After one and half hour, the rescue team reached the spot and saved many passengers,” he said.
Sanjay said after coming out from S(9) coach they saw that many other coaches have also been derailed.

Sanjay’s wife Jhili said it was a near death experience. “I was fearing the worst as I could not see my husband inside the coach. There was utter chaos and commotion inside,” she said.

“An unknown fellow passenger pulled me up from the tilted coach to the roof top. The youth was an angel for me and many others like me,” she said, adding “Only after coming out of the coach I saw my husband outside. Some passengers were torn into pieces of flesh,” she said.

Sanjay said that the Rayagada district administration had sent many buses to the mishap spot. “We came by bus up to Rayagada and then hired a vehicle to Bhawanipatna with seven others,” they said.

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