BENGALURU: A man steering a lorry without a driving licence and his vehicle being overloaded were cited as the primary reasons for the level crossing accident involving the Bangalore City-Hazur Saheb Nanded Express in August 2015.
Five people including Devadurga MLA A Venkatesh Naik died on the spot in the collision.
This is the conclusion of the inquiry report on the accident by Satish Kumar Mittal, Commissioner of Rail Safety, Southern Circle.
According to the report, "The lorry carrying a single stone weighing 21 tonnes was overweight by 4 tonnes and driven by a person having no driving licence."
The collision took place at 2.14 am on August 24 when a lorry carrying a huge granite stone rammed into the train after breaking the closed level crossing gate. The accident took place between Rangepalli and Penukonda stations on the Bangalore-Dharmavaram section.
Four coaches H-1, S1, S2 and B1 derailed and four passengers suffered injuries, two of them grievous ones. Passengers who lost their life were travelling in the First AC Coach (H1). The lorry rammed directly into this coach.
Naik, the 80-year-old MLA, AC Syed Ahmed, a/c mechanic attached to the Bengaluru Railway Division, Edora Pulla Rao, a farmer and T S D Raj working in an IT firm lost their lives along with the driver.
The report has fixed the primary responsibility on the person driving the lorry AP16 TT9885.
"The driver disregarded warning boards placed on the road in compliance of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and dashed the moving train disregarding the closed condition of the lifting barriers of the Level Crossing," the report stated.
The driver was also riding over 40kmph the permissible speed near the level crossing.
Relief measures provided in the aftermath of the accident were generally satisfactory, the report added.
None of the railway staff were held responsible for the accident, a source said. "The Bangalore Railway Division suffered a loss of `3.38 crore due to the accident," the source added.