The Hindu : Karnataka News : The rail accident that never was

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 31, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

The rail accident that never was

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE, JAN. 30. The message from the Railway control room was curt and indicated a sense of urgency. And nothing could have been more shocking when the full import of the communication unfolded. That the Mysore-Dharwad train had met with an accident near Hassan around 11 p.m. and 30 passengers were suspected to have died.

Senior Railway officials, who were woken up from their sleep on Saturday night, headed to the railway station where arrangements were in place to transport them to the disaster area. Within 10 minutes, the accident relief special stationed at the Ariskere junction pulled out of the station making a dash towards Dudda, which is about 20 km from Hassan.

The name sounded familiar to most officials for this is one of the most vulnerable spots for a mishap. The special train with cranes and other heavy equipment along with over 150 railway personnel, doctors, nurses, a special compartment equipped to carry out emergency life-saving surgery, reached the accident zone within 20 minutes. But suddenly the outward communication link with the headquarters snapped and the crew were cut off from the Railway communication network.

Meanwhile, senior officers from the Mysore division tried to make sense out of the event as they headed towards Hassan. Many of them maintained a studied silence for they had to muster enough courage to face the relatives of the dead. For, previous experience had shown them how difficult a task it is to confront a mob and also to hand out compensation to the grieving relatives.

As the vehicles approached Hassan there was still no word from the breakdown special train which had left Ariskere soon after the first information about the mishap came at 11.10 p.m.

The officers from Mysore took a deep breath and peered out of the window to find the entire crew from the breakdown special waiting for them at the accident spot.

Around the same time in Mysore "news" flew thick and fast in newspaper offices and telephones began to ring incessantly as journalists tried desperately to verify the authenticity of the first information that reached them.

There was no time to waste as the deadline to close the edition was fast approaching. But there was no official confirmation even till 12.55 a.m. and a raucous voice from the control room indicated that confirmation will be available within the next few minutes.

Mock drill

Another call to the control room and it was a familiar voice at the other end. It was the Divisional Railway Manager, Usha Mathur, and one imagined the worst. But she said: "Yes, it is true that the entire crew has left for Hassan but this is a mock drill to test the response time of the rescue team and the Railway personnel." So, there was no accident after all but a mock drill by the Railway authorities on Saturday in top secrecy.

The target time for the breakdown special to leave Ariskere was 10 minutes and it left within the specified time and reached the disaster zone in 18 minutes. The entire crew from Mysore reached the spot in two hours and the operational machinery was in place around the same time. Ms. Mathur later explained that such exercises are conducted periodically and is a closely guarded secret.

An official, who participated in the exercise, later said that none had a clue that it was a mock exercise or a drill till they reached the spot of the accident specified by the control room. "The general complaint against the Railways is that the response or lead time of the rescue team is too long and the relief seldom reaches the scene of the disaster fast enough. But Saturday night's exercise proved that we were fast enough," he said.

On Monday, the officials will sit down to study the response and level of synchronisation they achieved. This will be followed by an analysis of their collective action, and the officials will think of ways to further streamline the operations so that they could be just as fast in times of a real emergency.

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