A blaze erupted on Wednesday evening in the New Delhi-Darbhanga Special Express train near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, resulting in the destruction of three coaches and causing injuries to eight passengers. The cause of the fire, which broke out around 5:30 pm, was not known immediately. Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing out from the coaches. But fortunately due to the alertness of the station master, a major accident was averted before it happened. There were 500 passengers in three coaches.
While one coach was gutted in the fire, two adjacent ones were partially damaged and a fourth coach was filled with smoke. All the four coaches were detached from the train, a police official present at the spot said. Many passengers lost their belongings in the incident, he said.
Uttar Pradesh Relief Commissioner Naveen Kumar said eight people, four of them from Bihar, were injured in the fire and admitted to the Etawah district hospital. The nature of injuries and other details of these passengers are being ascertained, he said.
Etawah Superintendent of Police (SP) Sanjai Kumar had earlier said that four people suffered minor injuries in the incident but according to preliminary information, they were not burn injuries. Himanshu Upadhyay, Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of North Central Railways, said the guard at the Sarai Bhopat junction near Etawah noticed smoke coming out from the New Delhi-Darbhanga Special Express’ coach number S1.
The train was immediately stopped and all the passengers were evacuated, he said. Alert railway officials averted a big tragedy today, he added. The Railways made arrangements to accommodate the affected passengers in the remaining coaches of the train.