Indian train fire funerals delayed

Passengers threw children to safety through windows of burning coaches

Mass funerals for victims of Thursday's Indian train fire have been postponed to give relatives more time to identify the remains of their loved ones.

So far only the bodies of only 17 of the 38 victims have been recognised. Authorities in the northern state of Punjab had been planning funerals on Friday for the other 21 victims.

"People are coming here to look for their relatives, but the problem is that some of the bodies are so badly charred that they are unrecognisable," railway official SS Singh told the Aaj Tak television channel.

It is still not clear what caused the fire on the Golden Temple Express but railway authorities have come in for severe criticism for failing to implement safety measures.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar has ordered an investigation into the accident, expected to be completed in a month's time.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

Survivors describe the horror

Preliminary investigations suggest that an exploding cooking stove may have caused the accident, reports quoted a senior railway official as saying.

Railway officials are also said to be "puzzled" at the speed at which the fire spread, engulfing three coaches.

Newspaper editorials on Friday blamed the railway authorities for poor safety standards on their trains.

"Travelling by railway in India is now perceived to be one of the most hazardous," said the Hindustan Times in an editorial.

The Indian Express said the real question was whether the Indian railways were prepared to reorient its priorities.

"Is it willing to learn lessons from tragedy? Or is it condemned to replay it?"

Outdated equipment

The fire broke out in three coaches of the Golden Temple Express - formerly known as the Frontier Mail - which was travelling from Bombay (Mumbai) to the holy Sikh city of Amritsar.

TRACKS OF TEARS

Jan 2003: 18 are killed as two trains collide in Maharashtra

Dec 2002: Train derails south of Hyderabad, killing 20

Sept 2002: 118 die in Bihar when the Rajdhani Express goes off the tracks

Jun 2001: A train derails and plunges into a river in Kerala, killing 64

Aug 1999: 285 die when two trains collide north of Calcutta

Nov 1998: 211 die as the Frontier Mail and the Sealdah Express collide in the Punjab

Eleven children were among the dead and at least another 13 people were injured.

The fire started at 0345 on Thursday (2215 GMT Wednesday) after the express had left Ladawal, about 300 km (195 miles) north of Delhi.

Most of the passengers were asleep when the fire broke out.

India has one of the largest rail systems in the world, carrying 11 million people daily over more than 100,000 kilometres of track.

Much of the network still depends on outdated signalling equipment that is manually operated.

Last month, the state-run Indian Railways unveiled plans for a massive upgrade of tracks, bridges and track signals to bring down the high number of railway accidents.

In 1998, a previous Frontier Mail express crashed into three derailed cars of another train, killing 211 passengers.