India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had been scheduled soon to inaugurate the latest in a series of new high-speed trains highlighting his government’s expanded infrastructure investment.
Instead, he arrived on Saturday at the devastating scene of the country’s deadliest rail disaster in decades.
At least 261 people were killed and about 900 others injured on Friday night in what officials in a preliminary government report described as a “three-way accident” involving two passenger trains and one freight train in the eastern state of Odisha.
The toll, exceptionally large even in a nation with a long history of deadly crashes, renewed longstanding questions about safety problems in a system that transports more than eight billion passengers a year.
Persons:
India’s, Narendra Modi
Locations:
Odisha