Monitors on rails every two hours

In a bid to prevent further accidents of the kind that killed 51 people on Monday night, the Konkan Railway has deployed rail monitors on its 760-km route who will man special locomotives to monitor the tracks for any obstruction or heavy rainfall every two hours.

B Rajaram, Managing Director, Konkan Railway Corporation said the locomotives had been put in place yesterday. The entire route has been divided into six sections - Veer to Chiplun, Chiplun to Ratnagiri, Ratnagiri-Vaibhavvade Road, Madgoan to Ankola, Ankola to Batkal and Bhatkal to Udipi - and each locomotive will cover 75 to 80 km for an engineering inspection.

The moment any obstruction is noticed or rainfall is heavy, the station master and the driver are contacted and advised to reduce the speed to 40 kmph from the normal 100 kmph.

Describing the accident as "a natural calamity" - the landslide occurred at a spot deemed a stable slope and which has withstood heavy rainfall for the last eight year - Rajaram said as long-term measures, Konkan Railway plans to install an electronic pendulum system linked to the anti-collision device (ACD) technology on the slopes to detect any movement of the soil. "We have learned from the recent tragedy that three to five cms of rain in an hour is the bench mark," he said. During the monsoon, around 200 patrolmen work on eight-hour shift duty with a day and night patrol.

But statistics mattered little to survivor Shalaka Naik. From her bed in a hospital trauma ward, she keeps begging to know whether her husband and son survived the train derailment.

"Tell me. Are you keeping something from me? Is my son OK?" Naik, 32, pleads. A deep gash covers her forehead and her right arm and leg are covered in casts as she lies in a bed at Goa Medical College Hospital.

Her husband and 12-year-old son were killed in Sunday's disaster, but following usual practice in India, her relatives and hospital workers won't tell her the truth until they feel she is physically able to stand it.

"She's in no condition to know the truth yet," says Naik's sister, Shatakshata, who reassures her that her family is all right.

Naik was returning to Mumbai from Goa where her family had attended her brother's marriage when the train ran into a boulder, one of many loosened from a hillside by monsoon rains, the first accident since the 760-kilometer Konkan rail line began operation in 1998. The coach Naik was traveling in was directly behind the engine and suffered the greatest impact from the car behind it. In all, four coaches derailed near Vaibhyavadi, a village 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the beach resort town of Panaji.

The Konkan route cuts through hills and crosses rivers along the country's western coast and passes through 91 tunnels.

– With input from AP