The Perumon rail tragedy which claimed the lives of several people had shocked the collective consciousness of the public 25 years ago on this day. On July 8, 1988, nine bogies of the Bangalore-Kanyakumari Express plunged into the depths of the Ashtamudi lake leaving 105 persons dead.
The windows and doors of the compartments got stuck owing to the rains, muffling the screams of the hapless passengers. Raju Gregory, who is a pointsman with the Railways now and a sand mining employee then, was a key figure in saving 16 lives on that day. He spoke to Express from his cabin at the Kathrikadavu railway cabin in Ernakulam.
“I was loading sand on the banks of the Ashtamudi under the Perumon bridge. It was drizzling. The waters of the Ashtamudi lake run very deep and become quite wild during the rainy season. The water was quite calm and there was no wind on that day. All of a sudden, the bogies of the train were crashing down into the lake one by one. There were three of us. We jumped into the water to help the passengers,” he said. Even though the Railways claim that only 105 people in the tragedy, Raju says that nearly 300 lives would have perished. According to him, Chief Railway Safety commissioner Suryanarayana had allegedly played a key role in stating that a tornado was the reason behind the tragedy.
“The Railways was making a mockery of the people of India. There was no wind. The tracks were being repaired on the day and the Railway authorities had been careless,” he said.
Raju, who plunged into the water and fished out seventy bodies, had saved 16 lives. Some of these passengers express gratitude to Raju even today. “ I get a cheque every month. It is from a woman who lives in Bangalore. She said that she had opened a fixed deposit of Rs 50,000 for me,” Raju says with a smile.
Raju recollects the most haunting memory of a child who was trapped inside the bathroom of a bogie. ‘’She was dead when I fished her outside. I hurt my head while I tried to rescue her,” he said.
Raju says that even though the Railways had given him a job in 1994, the authorities never treated him well.
