Deadly India rail crash caused by faulty signal connections made during repair

Published July 4, 2023
A drone view shows derailed coaches after two passenger trains collided in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha, India on June 3. — Reuters
A drone view shows derailed coaches after two passenger trains collided in Balasore district in the eastern state of Odisha, India on June 3. — Reuters

Workers repairing a rail-road barrier in India made faulty connections in the automated signalling system on the network, leading to the country’s worst rail disaster in two decades, an official probe has found.

The June 2 crash at Bahanaga Bazar station, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, killed 288 people and injured more than 1,000.

The disaster struck when a passenger train hit a stationary freight train, jumped off the tracks and hit another passenger train coming from the opposite direction.

In the probe report, seen by Reuters, the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) investigators said the first collision occurred due to modifications done to the signalling circuit to fix frequent problems at a nearby rail-road barrier.

Local railway staff did not have a standard circuit diagram which led to a faulty connection in the signalling system when they tried to take the boom-barrier circuit offline for repair, it said. The malfunctioning system directed the passenger train onto the path of the freight train, it said.

Reuters last month reported for the first time that investigators were focusing on the repair work on the railroad barrier and its possible connection to a manual bypass of the signalling system.

Indian Railways, the fourth largest train network in the world, is a state monopoly run by the Railway Board. The board reports to the Railways Ministry.

The rail network is undergoing a $30 billion transformation with gleaming new trains and modern stations under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to boost infrastructure and connectivity but the crash raised questions about whether safety was getting enough attention.

The CRS probe report said there were lapses at multiple levels in the signal and telecom department and standard operating procedures were not followed during the repair work.

Opinion

Editorial

On press freedoms
Updated 03 May, 2026

On press freedoms

THE citizenry forgets, to its own peril, how important a free and independent media is in the preservation of their...
Inflation strain
03 May, 2026

Inflation strain

PAKISTAN’S return to double-digit inflation after 21 months signals renewed economic strain where external shocks...
Troubled waters
03 May, 2026

Troubled waters

PAKISTAN’S water crisis is often framed in terms of scarcity. Increasingly, it is also a crisis of contamination....
Iran stalemate
Updated 02 May, 2026

Iran stalemate

THE US and Iran are currently somewhere between war and peace. While a tenuous ceasefire — extended largely due to...
Tax shortfall
02 May, 2026

Tax shortfall

THE Rs684bn shortfall in tax collection during the first 10 months of the fiscal year is a continuation of a...
Teaching inclusion
02 May, 2026

Teaching inclusion

DISCRIMINATORY and exclusionary content in Punjab’s textbooks has been flagged in Inclusive Education for a United...