New Delhi: Three days after the three-train clash in Odisha’s Balasore, that led to the deaths of over 275 people, news reports have pointed to how family members of people given up for dead have identified them as alive.
A report on Times of India essays the particular journey of Helaram Malik, a resident of Howrah in Bengal, who travelled to Balasore in an ambulance with his brother-in-law only to find that his son Biswajit was not in any of the city hospitals
Helaram found that Biswajit was in a makeshift morgue in Bahanaga High School. Initially not allowed to see the body, he eventually noticed that Biswajit’s right hand was shivering and that he was not dead but unconscious.
Helaram and his brother-in-law have brought Biswajit back to Kolkata, where he is undergoing treatment at the SSKM Hospital. He is critical.
Another TOI report points to how 10-year-old Debashish Patra was rescued from a pile of seven bodies after the accident by his brother Subhasish and villagers. Patra is undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College and Hospital. Subhasish had, according to the report, kept looking for him in the darkness.
On social media, there has been talk on whether the government has presumed the death of some of the Balasore victims too early. Eedina News journalist Dhanalakshmi Devaraj has tweeted video footage of rescue workers piling bodies on a truck.
Others have asked whether some of them could have been alive and in need of resuscitation.