Railways ask for safety funds again after crash

The derailment, among India’s worst train tragedies, was a stark reminder of the dilapidated condition of the vast state-run railways and of the challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in fulfilling his promise to modernize them. 

Officials believe a rail fracture may have sent 14 carriages crumpling into each other as most of the 1,700-odd passengers on board slept. But they cannot be sure until each section of damaged track is analysed. 

“This was an accident where all of the rails were uprooted and broken. It’s very complicated,” Mohammad Jamshed, a senior railways ministry official, told Reuters. Built under British rule, the world’s fourth largest rail network ferries 23 million people across India every day. 

With people regularly clinging precariously to the outside of carriages or crammed on the roof, it is groaning under growing demand and decades of underinvestment.