India resumes limited train service as it eases COVID-19 lockdown

New Delhi: India reopened parts of its huge rail network on Tuesday, running a limited number of trains as it looks at easing a nearly seven-week lockdown despite a continuing rise in coronavirus infections. | Migrant workers and their family members wave from the windows of a special train directed to Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh state as they go back to their hometowns.

Special trains departed from several large cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai. Passengers were allowed to enter the stations only if they were asymptomatic and cleared thermal screening. They are required to maintain social distancing on board and are given hand sanitizers when they enter and leave.

Indian Railways also is requiring that passengers download a government-run contact tracing smartphone app before boarding the train. Critics say the Aarogya Setu app endangers civil liberties in how it uses location services and centralizes data collection. | Stranded people with their belongings stand in queues to enter the railway station in New Delhi.

A police personnel stands guard as stranded people with their belongings wait to enter the railway station in New Delhi.

Stranded people with their belongings stand in a queue to enter the railway station in New Delhi.

Migrant workers and their family members wave from the windows of a bus as they arrive to board on a special train from Amritsar to Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh state.

Thousands of passengers waited in long, serpentine queues outside New Delhi's railway station, the hub of India's rail network. Police in riot gear tried to maintain social distancing and citizen volunteers offered water bottles to passengers who lugged heavy bags. Station workers sanitized the area with disinfectants.

"I don't care about what happens next. At least I will be with my family," said Ram Babu Kumar Singh, who works as an air conditioning mechanic in New Delhi but whose home is in eastern Bihar state. "If I stay here for long, I will die." | Stranded people with their belongings stand in queues to enter the railway station in New Delhi.

Singh was among many who expressed relief over the resumption of train travel, which was suspended in late March along with road and air services as part of the nationwide lockdown. Its strictness helped keep confirmed coronavirus infections relatively low. But in recent days, as the lockdown has eased and some businesses have resumed, infections and deaths have shot up. | Migrant people wave as they leave in a special train for Mau in Uttar Pradesh to reach their homes.

The decision to open select train lines was made Sunday as India considers easing the strict lockdown of its 1.3 billion people that has left millions stranded in cities. The announcement led to a mad rush for online bookings on Monday as more than 45,000 people purchased train tickets within hours of the start of sales, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. | Indians line up to board trains outside New Delhi railway station in New Delhi.

India has confirmed 70,756 cases of coronavirus, including 2,293 deaths, but experts believe its outbreak is far greater. Almost a fifth of India's confirmed infections are people from the densely populated cities of Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune and Ahmedabad, which also are major centers of economic activity. | A health worker checks the body temperature of a migrant worker before going to Amritsar railway station to take a special train to Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh state.

The train network, often described as India's lifeline, totals 67,000 kilometers (42,000 miles) and normally carries more than 20 million passengers daily. | Passenger wear face mask and wait to board the special train to New Delhi which is started by the Indian Railways during the COVID-19 lockdown in Howrah.

The lockdown started in late March and emptied the usually teeming railway stations. It also destroyed the livelihoods of millions of Indians who rely on daily wages, left migrant workers stranded in big cities and created a hunger crisis for tens of thousands. | Migrant workers gather outside Dharavi slums to board a bus to take them to railway terminus for boarding a special train back home during a nationwide lockdown imposed as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Mumbai.

Caught off guard by the large-scale displacement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is increasingly looking at relaxing the lockdown. It recently ordered special trains to take migrant workers, students and others stranded by the lockdown to their home states after mounting pressure from the opposition. | People maintain social distance as they wait to enter a platform of New Delhi Railway Station following resumption of passenger train services connecting major cities.

On Monday, Modi told state leaders in a video call that they will get a greater say in determining the extent of restrictions and relaxations after May 17. | A girl wearing a face mask and a protective cap waits with her belongings outside a railway station to board one of the trains that will take her and other people to their home states.

"We have a twofold challenge to reduce the transmission rate of the disease, and to increase public activity gradually," Modi said. | Muslim women carry their luggage as they enter a railway station to board trains that will take them to their home states after India announced a limited reopening of its giant rail network.

He said the effort now should be to stop the spread of the virus in India's vast rural areas and emphasized that social distancing remains the biggest weapon until a vaccine is developed. "Now the world will be pre-corona, post-corona just like the case of the world wars. And this would entail significant changes in how we function," Modi said.