"The crumpled remains of the last three coaches of the Indore-Gwalior Intercity Express which were rammed by a goods train early on Monday morning at Badarwas Station in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, India."
Of course, train wrecks, unfortunately, are not uncommon in India, where the railway network is the backbone for the movement of goods and people.
Its safety record is terrible though. On top of the failures within the system, there are terrorists of various flavors who target trains as well.
An Indian I met in my travels a few years ago described the accident he was in, when he was barely in his teens. It was in the dead of the night when their coach and a couple others derailed. No lights and utter darkness. The family assessed the situation and was thankful that it was only bruises and minor fractures.
What they didn't know was that their coach lay across the other set of tracks.
A few minutes later, an express train speeding along in the other track, and the system not aware of this derailment, well ... you can imagine what happened next ... his parents died right there. He was one of the very few who survived to tell this tale. As his fractured body was being pulled out, the now mangled coach burst into flames ... burning the dead bodies within.
While train travel has improved over the years, the system has a long way to go ...
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