Andhra trains collided as driver watched cricket on phone: Minister
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday that the driver and assistant driver of one of the two trains involved in a fatal collision in Andhra Pradesh last year were watching a cricket match on their phone during the accident, PTI reported. The Rayagada passenger train crashed into the Visakhapatnam Palasa train on October 29, 2023, killing 14 passengers and injuring over 50 others. A preliminary inquiry into the incident had also blamed "human error" for the crash.
Why does this story matter?
The Andhra train tragedy came just a few months after a triple train collision in Odisha. On June 2, the Chennai-bound Coromandel Express entered the passing loop instead of the main line and collided with a goods train. Twenty-one coaches of the Coromandel Express derailed, and three of those collided with the oncoming SMVT Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express on the next track. The crash—also caused by human error—claimed 300 lives, making it one of the deadliest railway accidents in two decades.
New safety measures to detect driver distractions
In light of the devastating incident in Andhra, Vaishnaw announced that Indian Railways was taking steps to implement new safety measures to avoid such accidents in the future. "Now we are installing systems that can detect any such distraction and make sure that the pilots and the assistant pilots are fully focused on running the train," he told PTI. The minister emphasized the organization's commitment to prioritizing safety and finding solutions to prevent similar accidents from happening again.
Preliminary probe blames Rayagada passenger train crew
Although the official investigation report by the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) is still pending, a preliminary railway inquiry found the driver and assistant driver of the Rayagada passenger train at fault. The inquiry was conducted a day after the accident. Both crew members, who died in the accident, had breached regulations by passing two defective auto signals.
Human errors caused 192 train accidents in 5 years: CRS
India—with one of the world's largest rail networks—witnessed 192 train accidents between 2017 and 2022 due to human error by the railway staff and general public, per CRS data. The data also revealed that there were at least 256 train accidents between 2017 and 2022, of which nearly 75% of the mishaps were derailments. Between 2017 and 2022, the proportion of train accidents attributed to an error by railway staff ranged from 43% to 65%, with the highest in 2019-20.