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  • bombs kill 155 people on Indian train

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Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.

Moderators: Komachi, David Benton

 #267789  by David Benton
 
India train bombs kill more than 160 [video report]

7.05am Wednesday July 12, 2006
By Krittivas Mukherjee


MUMBAI - Bombs exploded on packed commuter trains and stations in India's financial hub, Mumbai, overnight, killing more than 160 people and wounding hundreds.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the seven bomb explosions that took place within about 10 minutes during evening rush hour.

But suspicion was likely to centre on Muslim militants fighting New Delhi's rule in disputed Kashmir, who have been blamed for several bomb attacks in India in the past.

"The death toll is 163 and around 460 people have been injured," police inspector Ashok Jadhav told Reuters.

"We are not sure if it is RDX or not," city Police Commissioner A.N. Roy said, referring to the possible use of high-powered plastic explosives.

Commuters fled suburban rail stations in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in panic after the explosions and mobile phone lines were jammed. Hundreds of dazed passengers walked along the railway tracks.

Television showed twisted rail carriages and people in torn, blood-stained clothes carrying the dead and wounded on stretchers as steady monsoon rain fell. A policeman was shown carrying two white, blood-stained bundles of what appeared to be body parts.

"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded," D.K Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, told Reuters.

At peak hours, each nine-car passenger train in Mumbai carries over 4,500 people, about three times the rated capacity.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for calm and Sonia Gandhi, leader of the ruling Congress party, expressed her grief.

"I urge the people to remain calm, not to believe rumours and carry on their activity normally," Singh said in a statement, calling the explosions a "shameful act".

The United States called the bomb attacks "senseless acts of violence". Pakistan, the EU, France and Britain also condemned the explosions.

At the city's Sion hospital, relatives were frantically looking for friends and relatives. Scores pored over a board displaying a list of injured.

"I spoke to him 10 minutes before he died," said Haji Mastan, sobbing uncontrollably after being told about the death of his cousin Mukti Darvesh, who was travelling on one of the trains.

"Why did it have to end like this? He was young and he has children." Some of the people who entered a makeshift morgue were unable to identify badly mutilated bodies.

6.5 million people

The blasts occurred on five trains and at two stations in Mumbai's western suburbs, which are linked to the downtown office and business areas mainly by an overground rail network that is used by some 6.5 million people each day.

Railway authorities suspended all suburban train services in the city after the blasts.

Dazed survivors with wounds from injuries to heads, legs and hands waited at railway stations, with little sign of any emergency medical aid.

"We heard a loud blast in one of the train compartments. When we rushed there and looked, we saw people with severed limbs and grievous injuries," one witness told the CNN-IBN news channel, standing in a blood-spattered coach.

"There were no police or railway people to help."

The first attack took place at 6.24pm (11.54pm NZT) with the others following in quick succession.

"Incidents had taken place in the space of 10 minutes. It appears to be pre-planned," Anil Sharma, chief security commissioner of Western Railway, told CNN-IBN television channel.

The Mumbai blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist militants killed seven people, six of them tourists, in a series of grenade attacks in Indian Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police said, the most concerted targeting of civilians in months.

Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz strongly condemned the "terrorist attack" in Mumbai.

Mumbai, a metropolis of about 17 million formerly known as Bombay, has been hit by bomb blasts in the past decade.

More than 250 people died in a string of bomb explosions in the city in 1993 for which authorities blamed the city's underworld criminal gangs. Those attacks followed the demolition of a mosque in the Hindu holy city of Ayodhya.

- REUTERS

 #268131  by bellstbarn
 
Evil, criminal, irresponsible. It may also bring the perps unintended consequences. Sadness for victims, families, and nation.
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By the way, what power is in the catenary? The photos show multiple unit cars.

 #268670  by george matthews
 
bellstbarn wrote:Evil, criminal, irresponsible. It may also bring the perps unintended consequences. Sadness for victims, families, and nation.
--------
By the way, what power is in the catenary? The photos show multiple unit cars.
That particular line uses 1500 v DC. But some trains are dual voltage and so can run on the 25 kv AC.

see Wikipedia Bombay railways
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_suburban_railway

 #268680  by bellstbarn
 
Many thanks for the link to the Wikipedia site, so very interesting. I contrast this with my Long Island Rail Road.
"Yearly more than 3,500 people die on the Mumbai suburban railway track due to overcrowding during peak hours. This is believed to be the highest number of fatalities per year on any urban or suburban railway system. Many of these deaths are caused when passengers cross the tracks on foot, instead of using the footbridges provided for going from one platform to another, and are hit by locomotives."

Ouch. Our problem is mostly pedestrians walking around the gates at grade crossings.
Only recently, I began a blog on this topic:
http://www.ligrief.blogspot.com

 #268705  by David Benton
 
The bombay trains have to be seen to be believed .
People hanging all over them .
When i was there we made a beeline for a carriage that seemed less crowded than the others .however the ladies inside wern't letting us in thier carriage ! . so we ended up been the last to cram into the already filled unisex carriages .

 #268751  by RussNelson
 
For whatever reason, men on Indian trains feel free to feel up women who ride the trains, so the trains (in order to have any women riders at all) have women-only cars.

And yes, they have to be seen to be beliieved. I have a customer about five minutes walk from the Mahim station. I hope none of my friends got caught in the bombings.
 #269026  by george matthews
 
David Benton wrote:
Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, but both claim it in full.



- REUTERS
They are now building a railway from India to the Indian part of Kashmir.

See also
http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews ... shmir.html