Railways blame weather gods for Elphinstone Road bridge stampede

NEW DELHI: The Railways Ministry on Wednesday absolved itself of all responsibility in the Elphinstone Road Station bridge collapse in Mumbai that killed 23 people last month, blaming the weather gods instead for tragedy.

A five-member committee constituted to inquire into incident in its report found that heavy rains and large number of people on the railway bridge was the main cause of September 29 stampede.

The committee examined all the matters pertaining to the incident including the evidence from the witnesses, the written statement of injured persons, Railway officials of Elphinstone road station and analysis of footages of all the CCTV cameras installed at the station including those located on the foot over bridge (FOB).

“The incident occurred due to sudden downpour of heavy rains and accumulation of commuters on FOB and stair case. The situation got further aggravated when one bundle of flowers of a vendor dropped followed by someone shouting that "Majha phool padla" and some commuters mistook the word “phool” for “pull”. This may have possibly triggered panic and led to stampede,” said the committee in it report submitted to Anil Kumar, GM Western Railway.    

Also, the inquiry has said that none of the witness supported the claim of short circuit on the bridge that led to the chaos.

The panel has recommended measures, including preventing people from carrying heavy luggage during the peak hours. Other recommendations include relocation of elevated booking to widen the staircase. The elevated booking office is adjacent to the staircase where the stampede occurred.

Among the major suggestions to avoid any such situation in the future are restricting the movement of commuters, mainly vendors, carrying baskets stuffed with goods during peak hours.

Addressing a conference on railways, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said that he was pained at the 18 month delay in inviting tender for the bridge and called it a wakeup call for railway employees.  

The railway ministry has constituted a high level committee under the former Chief Vigilance Officer Pratyush Sinha to inquire into the reasons for delay in the whole process and suggest ways and means to ensure that such delays can be minimised in future.      

Railway has also decided to codify duties of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and Government Railway Police (GRP) to avoid any confusion among the both forces in case of an incident.