A drone shot of rescue operations at the train accident site in Balasore. (File photo/AP)
Hellaram left for Balasore on Friday night with an ambulance and his brother-in-law Deepak Das.
Minutes after reports of the tragic accident of the Coromandel Express in Odisha’s Balasore on Friday surfaced, Hellaram, a shopkeeper from West Bengal’s Howrah, called up his son, who was on board the train, to inquire whether he was Ok.
“He was alive but in terrible pain,” was the reply from the other end, a message that made Hellaram travel more than 230 kilometers to reach there for his son. Without wasting any time, Hellaram left for Balasore on Friday night in an ambulance and accompanied by his brother-in-law Deepak Das.
After reaching Balasore, Hellaram could not find his son Vishwajeet Malik (24). He went from one hospital to another seeing the bodies of those who lost their lives in the accident. But she refused to believe that her son was dead and continued to search for him.
“We never gave up. We went around asking people, hoping to know where to go next. One person told us that if we didn’t find anyone in the hospital, we should look at Bahanaga High School, where the bodies are kept We couldn’t accept it, but still left,” Deepak said. times of India,
After hours of searching, Hilaram and Deepak finally reached the mortuary. While they were looking for Biswajit, a commotion broke out when a person noticed movement in the victim’s body. Biswajit was lying there in a state of unconsciousness and was badly injured. Hilaram immediately took him to the nearest hospital from where he was referred to the Cuttack Medical College Hospital. But Hellaram got his son discharged from the hospital in Cuttack and went to Kolkata where he underwent surgery at the trauma care unit of SSKM Hospital.
Palash Pandit, an ambulance driver who accompanied Hellaram to Odisha, said Biswajit was unconscious during the long journey from Balasore to Kolkata.
At least 275 people were killed when the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train collided near Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, located about 250 km south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar. Had happened. Friday evening around 7 o’clock.
The identities of 170 bodies have been confirmed, including 85 each in Balasore and Bhubaneswar. The Odisha government will send the bodies to their families at its own expense. “Besides, we will send the death certificates to the family members of the deceased at the earliest,” the government said.