India train crash: Relatives identify loved ones after 275 killed in disaster

Police in India have opened a criminal investigation into a train crash that has killed at least 275 people, as ITV News Asia Correspondent Debi Edward reports

Relatives of victims of India's deadliest train crash in decades are in the process of identifying their loved ones after an investigation was launched into the collision which killed at least 275 people.

Anyone found guilty for playing a role in Friday's tragedy has been threatened with the "harshest punishment" by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The development comes after India's Railway Board has recommended the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's leading crime agency, should take over the investigation into the cause of the disaster.

The CBI will be looking to see if an individual is responsible for the tragedy or if a technical error is to blame.

Families of passengers killed in the crash lined up outside Bhubaneswar city's All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Monday, while survivors being treated in hospitals said they were still trying to make sense of the disaster.

Outside the hospital, two large screens cycled through photos of the victims.

Each body had a number assigned to it, and relatives stood near the screen and watched as the photos changed, looking out for details that could be used to identify victims.

Anil Marandi drove for ten hours to discover that his brother-in-law and two cousins, who themselves were brothers, were among the dead.

He told ITV News: "Both brothers were married only a few years ago and now have kids.

"Here we are distraught and God knows how back home our families are coping with the bad news."

Elsewhere, Tuni Singh's husband was also named amongst the victims. She is among those who the Indian government have already paid compensation to for the loss of family members.

"My husband wanted a bright future for our children and he was working hard to provide a good education, so they can get government jobs so we could be proud of them," she told ITV News.

King Charles sent a message of condolence to Mr Modi on Monday, stating: "I would like to express our deepest possible condolences to the families of all those who have so tragically lost their lives.

"I do hope you know what a special place India and the people of India have in our hearts. I have particularly fond memories of visiting Odisha in 1980 and meeting some of its people on that occasion. 

"I pray, therefore, that you may be able to convey our most heartfelt prayers and sympathy to all those who have been affected by this appalling tragedy, together with our special thoughts for the people of Odisha."

'I am haunted by it': Survivors relive the crash

Gura Pallay had been watching a train pass by the one he was sitting aboard before he was thrown out of the train.

The 24-year-old landed next to the tracks alongside the metal wreckage of the train he'd been riding aboard.

His train had derailed after colliding with a stopped freight train shortly after leaving Balasore, a coastal city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the state capital. Another passenger train, the one he had seen pass by moments earlier, then hit the derailed carriages.

He said: "I saw it with my own eyes, but I still can’t describe what I saw. I am haunted by it.

"I never imagined something like this could happen, but I guess it was our fate."

Subhashish Patra had been travelling with his family when the crash happened, he said: "Everything happened so quickly.

"There were dead bodies all around me."

Currently, 45 bodies have been identified, and 33 have been handed over to relatives, said Mayur Sooryavanshi, an administrator who was overseeing the identification process at the hospital in the capital of Odisha state.

Upendra Ram started searching for his son Retul Ram on Sunday, after travelling 520 miles from neighbouring Bihar state.

After spending hours looking at photographs of the dead, Ram identified his son on Monday.

"I just want to take the dead body and go back home. He was a very good son," said Ram, adding that Retul had dropped out of school and wanted to earn money for the family.

"My wife and daughter can't stop crying at home. They are asking me to bring the body back quickly," he said.

Investigators said a signaling failure might have been the cause of the disaster, in which a passenger train hit a freight train, derailing on the tracks before being hit by another passenger train coming in the opposite direction on a parallel track.

The collision involved two passenger trains, the Coromandel Express traveling from Howrah in West Bengal state to Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, and the Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express traveling from Bengaluru in Karnataka to Howrah, officials said.

At least 123 trains scheduled to pass through Odisha were either cancelled or delayed after the accident. The disruption led air fares to Odisha to spike, prompting India's civil aviation ministry to warn airlines over abnormal surges in pricing.

Some train traffic has been restored on the tracks where the crash happened, after two days of repair work in which hundreds of workers with excavators removed debris of the trains.

The crash comes as Mr Modi focuses on the modernisation of India's colonial-era railroad network.

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Despite efforts to improve safety, several hundred accidents happen every year.

Most train accidents are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.

In August 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of India's worst-ever train accidents.

In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.

More than 22 million people ride trains across India every day.