MUMBAI: A day after Mumbai suburban railway that was severely hit when its signaling system was gutted in a fire, three persons died and 15 were injured in a freak accident on Thursday morning. Railway Minister Mukul Roy announced a financial aid of `2 lakh to the families of the deceased.
The incident happened near Nahur railway station in the eastern suburbs that falls under the Central Railway. The signaling failure had disturbed fewer train services resulting in more crowd on Thursday. The commuters standing on the footboard of the Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus-bound train were hit by a signal post adjoining the railway tracks. As the train was speeding, 17 persons fell from the train after being hit by the signal post. Two of them died on the spot, while another one succumbed to the injuries later.
Railway officials believe that some unidentified object that would have jutted out of the train may have hit the signal post bringing it too closer to the tracks. Since the train was overcrowded, the commuters standing on the foot board could do little to avoid the signal post even if they had seen it.
Meanwhile, the preliminary findings on the signal failure that occurred on Wednesday revealed that the power cable that was feeding power to the Over Head Equipment (OHE) which in turn powers the trains got in contact with a wire leading to the signals.