Trains passing through the Meerut line of the Northern Railway have been either cancelled or diverted till 6 pm on Sunday, in the wake of the tragic accident at Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, a senior railway official said Utkal Express derails: Trains on Meerut line cancelled, till 6pm today.
The sleepy town of Khatauli, about 100 kms from Delhi, became the epicentre of rescue operations on Saturday near its station, killing at least 23 people.
“All services on Meerut line, on which the Khatauli falls, have been either cancelled or diverted through other routes till 6pm, as the tracks are yet to be cleared of mangled train coaches,” DRM of the Delhi Division, RN Singh told PTI.
Delhi Division falls under the Northern Railway Zone, which administers some of the busiest stations in the country.
“The train had 23 coaches out of which 13 had derailed. It was running at a speed of about 100 kmph when the accident took place,” he said.
Singh said the diverted trains will run through Shamli till the restoration work is over.
The train was coming from Puri in Odisha and going to Haridwar in Uttarakhand, normally a journey of about 36 hours.
The train suffered huge damage in the accident on Saturday evening at Khatauli, around 40 km from Muzaffarnagar, which Singh described as “very grave”.
The derailment had such a massive impact that the train’s one of the sleeper coaches climbed onto another, while its other end rammed into a house, shattering its facade, and leaving its occupants terrified.
Two of the sleeper coaches overturned, with one of them hitting the facade of a local college here.
Bodies of two men and as many women were pulled out by the NDRF team, which worked from nearly 9 pm last night till 3am, to rescue survivors or extricate bodies with due dignity