Bangladeshi diplomat visits Odisha hospitals to look for injured train passengers

Balasore: A senior Bangladeshi diplomat, Sheikh Marefat Ali Islam, on Sunday visited Soro Hospital in Odisha’s Balasore district to provide consular assistance to Bangladeshi passengers injured in the triple train crash.

Islam told PTI that few Bangladeshi passengers were recuperating in different hospitals in Odisha but there was no news of death of any citizen of that country in the crash.

“One Bangladeshi passenger admitted at a Bhadrak hospital was discharged after treatment. Another has been referred to SCB Medical College in Cuttack. On Saturday, I had visited a Balasore hospital,” he said.

“If there’s any information on injured Bangladeshi patients, please dial our deputy high commission at Kolkata - 9038353533,” Marefat, second secretary in the Bangladesh deputy high commission which looks after eastern India, added.

“Several unclaimed bodies are lying in a few hospitals in Bhubaneswar. We will have to find out if there are any Bangladeshis among them,” he added.

He thanked the Odisha government for providing support in tracing the injured and dead Bangladeshi citizens in various hospitals.

Around 20 lakh Bangladeshis visit India every year mainly for treatment, with many of them preferring medical institutions in southern states.

Three trains— Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express, Bengaluru-Howrah super fast and a goods train — were involved in the pile-up, now being described as one of India’s worst train accidents.

The Coromandel Express crashed into a stationary goods train, derailing most of its coaches at around 7 pm Friday. A few passenger wagons of Coromandel toppled over the last few coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah Express which was passing by at the same time.

Investigators are looking into possible human error, signal failure and other possible causes behind the three-train crash.