Brahmaputra Derailment

Spikers recall train nightmare:

Guwahati, Dec. 12: Fifteen-year-old Sagarika Rabha was sleeping peacefully on the lower bunk of the 4055 Down Brahmaputra Mail till a sudden impact sent her crashing to the floor. For a moment she thought she was flying till she landed with a thump.

The next instant, half a dozen people crashed on top of her as 14 coaches of the train jumped tracks. Sagarika, a member of the Assam sub-junior volleyball squad, was on her way to participate in her first big tournament — the 30th sub-junior national volleyball championship in Renukut in Uttar Pradesh.

Eight other spikers and their coach Kumud Bora were also injured in the accident at Nijbari near New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal on Sunday. The train was bound for New Delhi. The accident claimed one life and left over 1,000 injured.

The Class IX student of Gandhi Smriti HS School in Bhetapara recalled the horrifying moments: “I was fast asleep in my coach when I was thrown off my berth as the coaches derailed. Our coach overturned and would have probably rolled on had it not hit a bamboo grove. I was trapped under the weight of my mates who were sleeping on the upper berths,” she said after she arrived by the Sifung Passenger here from Alipurduar at 1pm.

Though disappointed at having missed the national meet that begins tomorrow, Sagarika is also relieved at having escaped a fate worse than the injury on her head. “I would have been playing my first nationals tomorrow. I was injured on the back of my head and the doctors put me on a drip at the NJP Railway Hospital. I have been advised rest as my back is still hurting,” she said.

The Assam contingent comprised 12 girls, 14 boys, two coaches and a manager. They were asked to return by secretary of the Assam Volleyball Association, Bhupendra Nath Choudhury, when he heard of the accident and the injuries. “We did not want to take any risk and asked them to return. Nine of them were injured. Most of the players got down at Nalbari and Barpeta,” Choudhury said.

Echoing Sagarika, Durgamaya Chetri, a student of Class X at IGNOU, said this was the first time she had been involved in an accident. “I injured my back, leg and hand. It was hell. The lights went off and there was a lot of commotion and cries for help. I was sleeping on the upper berth but somehow I managed to catch hold of something and was dangling before our coach Kumud Bora helped me out of the train,” she recounted. Bora himself suffered cuts on his limbs.

Durgamaya said she, too, was treated at the NJP Railway hospital. “This was not my first national but this was my first accident and hope I don’t experience another in this lifetime,” she said.

Posted On: The Telegraph