The crushed practice vehicles had been cleared and the jumbled tracks straightened and rejoined, as staff labored on Sunday to rapidly restore an vital rail line in east India two days after the nation’s worst train disaster in decades.

Families of the victims had been nonetheless struggling to achieve the location of the wreck, close to the city of Balasore in Odisha State. Officials intensified the investigation into the reason for the crash, saying that whereas they had been trying into the malfunction of an digital signaling system, they didn’t rule out human error — and even sabotage.

The determined journey to assert the our bodies of family members was difficult for a lot of households by a scarcity of practice service, although by late Sunday night time, some rail motion on restored tracks started in each instructions. Officials mentioned a particular practice would ferry family members from town of Kolkata, within the neighboring state of West Bengal, to Odisha. And the federal government of Odisha introduced free bus service on the disrupted practice route.

“Most of these people are poor, and it may take them days to arrive,” mentioned Rahul Kumar, a physician on the fundamental hospital in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, who was serving to with the rescue and aid efforts.

Information about the reason for the three-way crash has been piecemeal. What is thought thus far: A high-speed passenger practice collided with a parked freight practice round 7 p.m. Friday and derailed. Some of its vehicles slammed into one other passenger practice, leaving a sprawling tableau of twisted steel, crushed limbs and splattered blood.

India’s railway community is without doubt one of the largest on the earth, transporting about eight billion passengers a yr. The catastrophe forged a pall over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to modernize the nation’s infrastructure, which he has made central to his marketing campaign for a 3rd time period. Mr. Modi’s authorities has ceaselessly publicized its investments in increasing infrastructure, however a current official audit famous a evident imbalance within the budgets.

While India was drastically growing general spending, together with for a fleet of recent semi-high-speed trains, the amount it has invested in safety for the remainder of the fleet of greater than 13,000 trains was reducing, the audit mentioned.

India’s railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, instructed reporters on Sunday that officers had been investigating whether or not the digital sign system to forestall accidents had not functioned as supposed. But officers left open the potential for sabotage and vowed punishment for anybody discovered accountable. The railway authorities have additionally requested India’s premier investigation company, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to take over the inquiry, the minister mentioned.

Railway officers grumbled in personal that by initiating a high-profile inquiry, political leaders had been on the lookout for scapegoats to distract from what has been a well-documented fact: Despite India’s trumpeting that it has diminished the frequency of mass-casualty rail accidents in recent times, the work of assuring security on the nation’s huge railway community stays deeply underfunded.

For the households that traveled to the crash website, the method of figuring out and claiming their family members was gradual and traumatic. Of the 275 individuals killed within the crash (officers initially mentioned 288 had died however later revised the toll), solely 88 our bodies had been returned to their households because the crash, officers mentioned. More than 1,100 others had been injured.

The authorities in Odisha on Sunday moved about 100 our bodies to the morgue on the fundamental hospital in Bhubaneswar, and it was at capability. The state authorities additionally printed on-line the pictures of greater than 160 of the lifeless, many in grotesque situation, to assist households establish victims.

About a dozen our bodies had been additionally specified by the hallway of a small college a number of hundred yards from the crash website. Others had been stored in a enterprise park in Balasore on prime of huge ice blocks coated with plastic sheets. But the ice was melting quick within the warmth. Families who made it to the park first had to take a look at the faces of victims on a laptop computer. Then, in the event that they noticed any resemblance to a liked one, they moved in for a better look.

Among the passengers on the Coromandel Express, one of many trains, had been two pals, Debpriya Pramanik and Budhadeb Das, who had been getting back from their village of Baliara, in West Bengal, to their building jobs within the southern metropolis of Vijayawada. They had persuaded a 3rd buddy, Shamik Dutta, to affix them.

Mr. Dutta had hardly left Baliara earlier than, however his two pals mentioned they’d satisfied him that the cash they may make in Vijayawada was price it.

How a lot? Mr. Dutta wished to know.

“Enough for people like us,” Mr. Das mentioned he had instructed him. Mr. Pramanik added that with the cash, Mr. Dutta may assist deal with his mother and father.

On the Coromandel Express, the three pals stood close to the door of a crowded compartment, the place individuals had been packed shoulder to shoulder. Just earlier than 7 p.m. on Friday, Mr. Dutta mentioned he wanted to make use of the restroom and left his luggage along with his pals.

It was the final time they noticed him alive.

Interviews with three railway officers, and press briefings by different officers, supplied perception into the moments earlier than the crash.

The Coromandel Express, had departed Kolkata with about 1,250 passengers and was passing the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, touring at a pace of about 80 miles an hour; it was not presupposed to cease there. At the identical time, the Yesvantpur-Howrah Superfast Express, with 1,039 passengers onboard, was exiting the station and heading in the other way.

At 6:55 p.m., the Coromandel suddenly veered onto a looping track the place a freight practice carrying heavy iron ore was parked. As the primary practice smashed into the freight practice, practically 20 of the passenger vehicles derailed — some had been flung right into a farm on the opposite aspect and others struck the tail of the second passenger practice.

Two senior railway officers, talking to reporters in Delhi, mentioned they’d firmly established a number of components: The Coromandel had acquired a inexperienced sign because it reached the Bahanaga Bazar station, the practice was not rushing and it had not crossed a purple sign.

The tracks are managed by an “interlocking system,” they mentioned, that determines what sign — inexperienced to go, yellow to decelerate, purple to cease — could be given to a practice. While interlocking methods might be managed manually or electrically, the officers had decided that the one on the station was digital.

“It is called a fail-safe system, meaning it will fail on the safer side,” Sandeep Mathur, one in all two railway officers in command of railway signaling, instructed reporters.

Investigators had been finding out why the loop remained open and whether or not a further layer of human oversight had failed. The conduct of officers on the sign home, a stone’s throw from the crash website, in addition to managers on the Bahananga station about 500 yards away, was additionally underneath investigation, the officers mentioned.

The crash occurred on the South Eastern Railway, a vital community for hundreds of thousands of migrant staff who journey cheaply on quick trains that lower throughout India’s heartland. Many of the passengers — like Mr. Das, Mr. Pramanik and Mr. Dutta — had been from the poorer japanese and central elements of India and had been employed within the extra prosperous cities within the south.

During the crash, Mr. Das was knocked out and suffered minor accidents. Mr. Pramanik emerged with a fractured arm and head accidents. Mr. Das mentioned he stored on the lookout for Mr. Dutta, however he was not on the hospital the place Mr. Pramanik was being handled, so he traveled to a mortuary a number of miles away.

It was there the place he discovered Mr. Dutta’s physique, wrapped in a white sheet.

Mr. Das mentioned he didn’t acknowledge his buddy’s face, solely the garments he had been sporting once they boarded the practice.

“I don’t know what to tell his parents,” Mr. Das mentioned.

Atul Loke, Karan Deep Singh and Alex Travelli contributed reporting.