New Delhi: The Adani Group has decided to take responsibility of school education of the children who have lost their parents in the Odisha train accident, chairperson Gautam Adani said on Sunday.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote, “We all are deeply distressed by the Odisha train accident. We have decided that the Adani group will take the responsibility of the school education of the innocent people who have lost their parents in this accident. It is the joint responsibility of all of us to provide strength to the victims and their families and better tomorrow to the children.”
The crash involving Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, which were carrying around 2,500 passengers, and a goods train occurred around 7 PM on Friday near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, about 250 km south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar. The Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express which was coming at high speed rammed into the coaches of Coromandel Express that had scattered on the adjacent track.
At least 275 people were dead and over 1,100 injured in the accident.
Twenty-one coaches were derailed and severely damaged in the accident, trapping hundreds of passengers. Both passenger trains were at a high speed and it has been cited by experts as one of the main reasons for the high number of casualties, as reported by PTI. Large cranes were deployed to move the wreckage and gas cutters were used to extricate the bodies from the mangled, toppled coaches.
Meanwhile, a public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a probe into the train accident by an expert panel headed by a retired judge of the apex court. The PIL also seeks directions for the implementation of the KAVACH Protection System in Indian Railways with immediate effect to ensure public safety.