The Kurnool train crash was the derailment and crash of a passenger train in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh, India, on 21 December 2002.
The Kacheguda - Bengaluru City Superfast Express was an express passenger service traveling between Hyderabad and Bangalore, entered Kurnool district at 1.00am, when it suddenly derailed, throwing the engine and seven carriages off the track and into one another. Twenty people were killed in the wreckage or died later in hospital, as local people flocked to the train to help those injured. Emergency services were able to quickly respond, and so there was no fire, which could have claimed many more lives.
In addition to the dead, approximately 80 people were listed as injured, with around 30 requiring hospitalization in Gooty, the nearest town. The line was hastily cleared to allow service to resume as soon as possible. During the hasty repairs to the rails, it was discovered that one of the railway tracks had been recently and deliberately severed, which caused the derailment.
Sabotage is often claimed following rail crashes in India, which has approximately 100 domestic terrorist groups, some of which have been known to target trains, such as the Rafiganj rail disaster of two months previously. Sometimes, sabotage is suggested by politicians or railway staff to cover up their own mistakes or corruption which can lead to poor maintenance. Such was initially possible here, with many criticizing the premature announcement of sabotage as the cause by local police.
Further investigations discovered used hacksaw blades and cloth used to disguise the broken line at the scene. Investigators believe the saboteurs took several nights to cut through the rail, which was remote enough that no one would see them at work. Later reports agreed that the crash was caused by sabotage. No terrorist organisation took credit, and no motive for causing the crash could be established.
Thirteen months after the attack, police in Hyderabad arrested a man named Syed Abdul Nayeem, a Lashkar-e-Taiba activist, who failed a 'brainwave fingerprinting test' after being questioned by Indian police. He was charged with being involved in both this rail sabotage and a bombing which killed two people in the Sai Baba Temple.
There have been four railway accidents at Potters Bar (England). Those in 1898 and 1946 were signals passed at danger. The accident in 2002 led to substantial public debate and a national change in policy relating to maintenance of infrastructure.
The Sarai Banjara rail disaster occurred on 2 December 2000, when a derailed freight train crossed onto the opposite track early in the morning in Punjab, India. A Howrah–Amritsar Express a passenger train coming from other direction hit the freight train head-on at speed, killing 46 people and injuring at least 150.
The Rafiganj rail disaster was the derailment of a train on a bridge over the Dhave River in North-Central India, on 10 September 2002. At least 130 people were killed in the accident, which was reportedly due to sabotage by a local Maoist terrorist group, the Naxalites.
The Karanjadi train crash was an accident resulting in derailment of a passenger train at Karanjadi, a village in Maharashtra, India, on 17 June 2004. 20 people were killed and well over 100 injured in the crash, which was the result of heavy monsoon rains.
The Grayrigg derailment was a fatal railway accident that occurred at approximately 20:15 GMT on 23 February 2007, just to the south of Grayrigg, Cumbria, in the North West England region of the United Kingdom. The accident investigation concluded that the derailment was caused by a faulty set of points on the Down Main running line, controlled from Lambrigg ground frame. The scheduled inspection on 18 February 2007 had not taken place and the faults had gone undetected.
The 2009 Nevsky Express bombing occurred on 27 November 2009 when a bomb exploded under a high speed train travelling between the Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg causing derailment near the town of Bologoye, Tver Oblast, on the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway. The derailment occurred at 21:34 local time. Russian officials had stated that 39 people were killed and 95 injured but later retracted that estimate. 27 deaths had been reported by 2 December. A second bomb exploded at the scene of the investigation the following day, injuring one. It was reported to have been triggered by a remote mobile phone.
On 28 May 2010, a Jnaneshwari Express train derailed at about 1 a.m. in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India. It was disputed as to whether sabotage or a bomb caused damage on the railway track, which in turn led to the derailment, before an oncoming goods train hit the loose carriages, resulting in the deaths of at least 148 passengers.
The Falls of Cruachan derailment occurred on 6 June 2010 on the West Highland Line in Scotland, when a passenger train travelling between Glasgow and Oban hit boulders on the line and derailed near Falls of Cruachan railway station, after a landslide. There was a small fire and one carriage was left in a precarious position on the 50-foot-high (15-metre) embankment. Sixty passengers were evacuated, some with minor injuries; eight of those were hospitalised as a precaution. However, no people were killed. In addition to blocking the line, the incident also caused the closure of the A85 road below the rail line. Both road and rail were closed for a week.
The Santiago de Compostela derailment occurred on 24 July 2013, when an Alvia high-speed train traveling from Madrid to Ferrol, in the north-west of Spain, derailed at high speed on a bend about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) outside of the railway station at Santiago de Compostela. Of the 178 people injured, the provisional number of deaths in hospital had reached 79 by the following 28 July.
The 2015 Gujranwala derailment occurred on 2 July 2015 when a military-special train carrying Pakistan Army unit was derailed at Gujranwala due to a bridge collapsing under it. Nineteen people were killed and over 100 were injured.
On January 21, 2017, the Hirakhand Express 18448, a scheduled passenger train from Jagdalpur to Bhubaneswar, derailed near the village of Kuneru in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, India, killing 41 people and injuring 68 others. The train was carrying 600 passengers.
Rail sabotage is the act of disrupting a rail transport network. This includes both acts designed only to hinder or delay as well as acts designed to actually destroy a train. Railway sabotage requires considerable effort, due to the design and heavy weight of railways.
An intercity passenger train derailed and collided with a house in Adendro, Greece, on 13 May 2017. Three people were killed, and ten were injured. A preliminary report stated that the cause of the accident was excessive speed.
The Stonehaven derailment was a fatal railway accident that occurred at 09:38 BST on 12 August 2020, when a passenger train returning to Aberdeen hit a landslip, near Carmont, west of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, following severe rain. Of the nine people aboard, three were killed, and six were injured.
The Salisbury Rail Crash was a railway accident on 31 October 2021, at Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom. Two trains, travelling on converging lines, collided at Salisbury Tunnel Junction, approximately one mile northeast of Salisbury railway station. Fourteen people, including one of the train drivers, were taken to hospital.
On 6 August 2023, at 13:18 PKT, ten coaches of the Hazara Express travelling from Karachi to Rawalpindi in Pakistan derailed near Nawabshah, in Sindh. At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 were injured.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
