Team News Riveting
Raipur, December 17
Seventeen wagons of a goods train jumped off the tracks in Chhattisgarh’s restive Dantewada district in the wee hours today.
Following the derailment, train traffic has been disrupted on the Kirandul-Visakhapatnam railway section under the Waltair division of the East Coast Railway zone. The route is largely used to chug iron ore from the two mechanized mines of state-run National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) located in Dantewada district.
According to police officials, 17 wagons loaded with steel making raw material derailed at the 420-21 milestone between Kamaloor and Bhansi stations at 4.05 am Friday.
Though the railway officials will establish the exact reason, police suspect mechanical faults for the incident. The railway tracks remain intact and will help to restore the traffic on the section at the earliest, officials said.
However, the movement of trains has been disrupted between Jagdalpur and Kirandul.
The senior police officials said the possibility of Maoist involvement was bleak. For, no Maoist banner, posters or pamphlets have been found on the site while no suspicious movement of militias, and Maoists at the site were detected, they added. The spot where the incident happened is under the sway of insurgents and most of the derailment in the section has been inflicted by the rebels.
The officials said Railway Protection Force (RPF) and District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel had reached the spot and planned to make round the clock security to facilitate early clearance of track.
