NFR tops list in number of accidents

SHILLONG, March 6: The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), despite being the smallest among the nine zonal railways in the country, has achieved the dubious distribution of claiming the highest number of derailments during the year 1999-2000. In fact, of the about 329 train derailments in the country during the year, the NFR accounted for as many as 67 or so such accidents. A report on the Safety Performance of the Indian Railways has revealed that derailments accounted for 71 per cent of all train accidents in the country during 1999-2000. However, in NFR, derailments constituted about 85 per cent of the accidents. Level crossing accidents comes second with 20 per cent (93 accidents), followed by 'fire in trains' five per cent (21 accidents) and collisions four per cent (20 accidents). A total of 462 train accidents took place during the year. Coming back to the NFR, one might imagine that the high number of accidents in the NE region is owing to sabotage by the growing number of militant outfits operating here. But a cause-wise analysis of accidents in the country has clearly established that Railway staff are the single biggest factor responsible for 287 cases of accidents out of the 467 accidents. The report prepared by the Railway Ministry disclosed that 'Other' than Railway staff 'was responsible for 105 accidents. The third biggest 'others' (23 accidents). According to the report, 'sabotage' as a cause came at the bottom of the table with around 22 train accidents. In railway terms, collisions, derailments, trains running into road traffic at level crossings and fire in trains are described as 'train accidents.' Incidents like cattle or transpassers getting run over by trains, trains running over obstructions without resulting in derailments, attempted train wrecking, fire at stations, bridges, viaducts, etc, are defined as 'miscellaneous accidents.' The report claimed that the incidence of train accidents per million train kilometres, which is universally accepted safety index, dropped from 5.5 in 1960-61 to 0.65 in 1999-2000. A total of 616 persons including 341 passengers, 242 others and 33 railway staff were killed in the accidents during 1999-2000 while another 1121 persons including 733 passengers were injured in the accidents in the country.