Charumathy, 16 and Chezhiyan, 15, usually sat together in the school van. On the morning of July 8, as was routine, the siblings climbed into the van together, clutching their bags and water bottles. Their 55-year-old father, Dravidamani, stood in front of their house in Chinnakattusagai village and waved at them, says their aunt, S. Rani, 42.
The bright yellow vehicle belonged to the private school where the two of them had studied since lower kindergarten — Krishnaswamy Vidyanikethan, located at S. Kumarapuram, in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu.
A few minutes later, at 7:45 a.m., as the van ferrying the siblings and two other children — V. Nimalesh, 12, and V. Viswesh, 16 — tried to edge past a gated level crossing at Semmankuppam village, a passenger train barrelled into it. Charumathy and Nimalesh died on the spot, while Chezhiyan died by the time he was wheeled into the emergency and trauma care ward of the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research in Puducherry, 44 kilometres from the site. V. Viswesh and the van driver, S. Sankar, 47, were rushed to the Cuddalore General Hospital. Doctors say their condition is stable.
The collision
Among the first few people to rush to the scene to rescue the children and van driver was P. Annadurai, 55, a resident of Semmankuppam. He says he heard wails and ran out of his house. “I looked out across my compound wall and saw the mangled remains of the van on the side of the track. The gate was open and I rushed out. When I tried to rescue the children, I came in contact with an overhead power cable and suffered some burn injuries,” he says.
Rangan, 50, an employee of a private company in Cuddalore SIPCOT, lives near the level crossing gate 170, a non-interlocked manned gate between Cuddalore and Alappakkam. He was getting ready for work when he heard a loud crash. Sensing that something was horribly wrong, he rushed to the level crossing and saw the mangled van.
“The gate was open and the area was engulfed in smoke. I dialled the ambulance service and then went near the van. The van driver was bleeding profusely and I immediately carried him on my shoulders. There was one child inside the van. One child’s body had been dismembered. Another child’s body was lying near the tracks. Other locals attended to them,” he says.
The residents rushed Sankar and Viswesh in an ambulance to the Cuddalore General Hospital. Viswesh, a resident of Thondamanatham, lies on a bed in the emergency ward with an intravenous drip inserted into his wrist and a cast on his left arm. “I was travelling with my brother Nimalesh and two other students apart from the van driver,” he recalls. “The gate was open. There was no whistled warning from the approaching train. There was no signal either. The train hit our van as we were crossing the tracks. I was thrown out of the van. Everything happened in a flash.”
The Villupuram–Mayiladuthurai passenger train hit the vehicle with such force that it dragged the van for about 50 metres before coming to a halt. By then, the van had been reduced to a mangled heap. Eyewitnesses say they saw blood on the tracks and school bags, water bottles, and shoes strewn around the area.
The gatekeeper’s job
According to eyewitnesses, the gatekeeper, Pankaj Sharma, had failed to close the gate when the train was passing. R. Sivanvel, a resident of Semmankuppam, a village near Cuddalore SIPCOT, says, “Another express train had crossed the same gate about 20 minutes before this incident. The gate was open then too.”
He also says the train did not give any warning and came thundering down the tracks. The Divisional Railway Manager, M.S. Anbalagan, told the media that the train was travelling at 95 kilometres per hour.
Rangan says the van driver, Sankar, had been operating the school van for nearly 15 years and had taken the same route several times. He adds that more than 15 vans and buses belonging to various educational institutions in the vicinity pass through this level crossing daily.
Residents of the area also allege that Sharma came out of his room only after they rushed to the accident spot. They contend that this was why an angry crowd pounced on him and manhandled him. Sharma has since been suspended and arrested.
Following the usual route
Southern Railway officials say their preliminary inquiries revealed that the gate was closed when the van arrived. They say the van driver insisted that he be allowed to cross the gate so that he could quickly pick up more children and take them to school on time. “Sharma allowed him to go through, which he should not have done,” says an official.
A statement issued by the Chief Public Relations Officer, Southern Railway, said that it had sanctioned a fully funded underpass at the level crossing gate where the accident occurred. However, it alleged that the Cuddalore collector has not given permission for it in the past year. The collector, Sibi Adhithya Senthil Kumar, did not respond to phone requests for a comment.
Another Railway official says the road leading to the level crossing was curved. He believes that the trees on the side of the road may have obstructed Sankar’s view of the train. The trees mostly fall outside the boundary of the Railways. Workers were pressed into service to clear the trees the day after the accident.
Residents say the driver of the school van took the usual route and tried to cross the tracks since the gate was open. The van had been fitted with speed governor and CCTVs but it had no attender to ensure the safety of the students.
“If an attender had been present, he could have got down and checked both sides of the level crossing,” says an official from the School Education Department. “There has been negligence on the part of the school administration, and the department has served a notice on the school seeking an explanation.”
An outdated system
The level crossing at Semmankuppam was a non-interlocked gate. This means that the gate’s position, whether open or closed, is not automatically linked to the status of signals and points, requiring manual operation and vigilance. There are at least two gatekeepers posted there and they work in shifts.
A Railway official explains what happens when a train passes a non-interlocked level crossing. “Normally, the station master at a non-interlocked section communicates the details of an approaching train, along with a private number, to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper then closes the gate and confirms this to the station master. The gatekeeper provides another private number, enabling the station master to allow the train into the block section. The private number is different for each train and is entered into a register maintained for the purpose. A private number that has been used can be used again only after 24 hours,” he says. In this incident, the station master was at Cuddalore station.
However, in non-integrated level crossing gates, there is no mechanism for the station master to confirm the claim of the gatekeeper that the gate has been closed, he says. “In this incident, they may have exchanged the private numbers, but the gatekeeper could have still failed to close the gate,” he says.
Across India, as of October 2024, there were 11,053 manned level crossing gates. Though all the level crossings were to be upgraded to interlocked gates in 2019, Southern Railway still operates trains through 276 non-interlocked gates, mostly in the Madurai and Tiruchi divisions. In Cuddalore, nearly 40 trains on average cross the Semmankuppam level crossing daily. “The Railways should expedite the interlocking of gates on a priority basis,” says an official.
Another official speaks of the drawbacks of this outdated system. “The non-interlocked system depends on verbal communication. If the gatekeeper says the gate is closed to road traffic, the station master takes that for granted and clears the train to run at sectional speed. The system is manual and runs on trust. On the other hand, at integrated level crossings, the gate is connected to the signalling system. The signal at the gate will turn red if the gate is open. The station master cannot clear a train to pass unless the gate is closed. And the gatekeeper cannot open the gate until the train passes,” he says.
There are other issues with the non-interlocking system as well, and these may not necessarily be the fault of the Railway. Officials say sometimes, people in a tearing hurry even assault gatekeepers for their delay in opening the gate. “One such incident was reported in Mundiyampakkam level crossing in Villupuram district in 2008-09. A closed gate should not be opened at any cost. The locomotive of a train weighs nearly 100 tonnes. If the train had derailed at Semmankuppam, more casualties could have occurred,” an official says.
Officials say the records and statements of the station master, gatekeeper, loco pilot, and train manager will throw more light on the sequence of events that led to the tragedy.
A relative of a deceased student grieves outside the Cuddalore District Government Hospital.
| Photo Credit:
M. Samraj
Unbearable grief
Leaders of various political parties condoled the deaths. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced compensation of ₹5 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund for the families of the deceased children, ₹1 lakh each for those severely injured, and ₹50,000 each for those with minor injuries. Southern Railway also announced ₹5 lakh compensation for the families of each of the deceased, ₹2.5 lakh for the kin of those grievously injured person, and ₹50,000 for other injured persons.
Meanwhile, Dravidamani’s family is in shock, having lost both their children. Rani says Dravidamani, a farmer, had battled against all the odds to ensure that his two children were educated at a private English medium school. Charumathy and Chezhiyan shared a close bond. “Even after coming back from school, they would spend their time together. They rarely went out,” she says.
She adds that the siblings were similar in many ways: they were studious, intelligent, and ambitious. “Charumathy stood first in class and won many medals in school. She wanted to pursue an MBBS degree. Chezhiyan wanted to write the civil services exam and become an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer,” she says.
Rani adds the whole village is shocked by the tragedy and collectively pins the blame on the gatekeeper and the Railways.
prasad.somasundaram@thehindu.co.in
With inputs from Vijay Kumar S.
