More than 80 bodies remain unaccounted for, five days after a horrific three-train crash in India killed 288 people.
The accident in Odisha state on Friday evening involved two passenger trains and a stationary goods train.
More than 1,000 injured were shifted to hospitals for treatment. Many families say they are still searching for their loved ones.
The fatal collision is India’s worst rail accident of this century.
On Tuesday, Odisha Chief Secretary Pradeep Jain said the official death toll has risen to 288 from the previous figure of 275 while 83 bodies remain unaccounted for.
In the accident, a passenger train was seen derailing after it wrongly entered a loop track on the side of the main line and collided with a stationary goods train parked there. Its derailed bogies collided with the rear coaches of another passenger train traveling in the opposite direction.
With over 3,000 passengers believed to be traveling in the two trains, reports suggest both trains were overcrowded.
Desperate family members of passengers from Odisha and other states thronged hospitals seeking information about their loved ones. But in some cases, identifying the body is proving to be a real challenge.
At the Balasore District Hospital in Odisha, Mohammad Nizamuddin could not claim the remains of his grandson.
16-year-old Tafseer Ansari and his brother 13-year-old Taseef were traveling with their father in the Coromandel Express when they met with an accident.
While the father is still missing, photographs of the teenagers, along with several other victims, were put up on a wall in the hospital – Tafsir Tag No. 20 and Tafsif 169 – so that their family members could identify them.
The boys’ faces were disfigured from the injuries, but their grandfather said he recognized them.
So he decided to go to the state capital Bhubaneswar – where about 100 abandoned bodies are kept in four hospitals – but was stopped by an official there.
The official told them that Tafseer’s body was already claimed by another family but has not been handed over to them yet.
“How is this possible? Do you mean I won’t recognize my grandson,” a distraught Mr Nizamuddin told JEE News.
He has now been asked to contact the Bhubaneswar civic authorities who are tasked with verifying claims, identity documents and taking steps to see that the body goes to the rightful family.
Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation Commissioner Vijay Amruta Kolange told JEE News, “If you look at the photo database, you will see that many bodies are beyond recognition, they are also rotting now.”
In cases where more than one family has claimed the body, DNA tests are being conducted to help the families in identification, he said, adding that “unidentified bodies will be kept at the hospital mortuary for the next 10 days. will be kept”, and that “the government will not hasten their burial or cremation.
