AMRITSAR, India: Angry relatives staged a protest Saturday on the tracks where a speeding train ploughed into crowds watching fireworks, killing about 60 people in the latest disaster to bedevil India's railway network.
The Jalandhar-Amritsar express was hurtling at 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour when it hit scores of people who had gathered on the tracks late Friday to get a view of a firework-packed effigy of the demon king Ravana for a Hindu festival.
Many of the victims were dismembered beyond recognition and police said it would take several days to complete the identification of the dead.
Some desperate families went from hospital to hospital in the northern city of Amritsar on Saturday looking for missing relatives, while the first funerals of some victims were held.
Hardeep Singh, chief medical officer for Amritsar, told AFP 59 deaths had been confirmed and 90 people had been injured, with seven in critical condition.
Singh said only 25 bodies had been identified so far. Amritsar's main hospital did not have enough space in its morgue, and some corpses were laid outside.
The disaster led to new demands for safety reforms to India's accident-plagued railway system, which records thousands of deaths each year.
Sporadic protests broke out near the accident site, with scores of protesters calling for action against the local authorities and the train driver who was questioned by police on Saturday.
But federal junior minister for Indian Railways ruled out any punitive action against his staff, including the driver, saying the national carrier was not at fault.
"There was no lapse on our part and no action against the driver will be initiated," Manoj Sinha told reporters in New Delhi, adding "trains travel in speed only".
Police moved the protesters off the tracks and brought in reinforcements to control a crowd of hundreds that gathered around the scene of the disaster.
Investigators said victims did not hear the train because the drone of the locomotive was drowned out by firecrackers. Another train had narrowly missed the crowds two minutes earlier, officials said.
According to media reports, the driver told police he did not see the revellers until the last second because he had come around a bend in the dark into the firework smoke.
As the blame game spread, police said they had given permission for the display for the annual Dussehra festival fireworks but that organisers did not have approval from the city, health department and fire brigade.
According to media reports the organisers, members of the ruling Congress party, had gone into hiding.
Federal Railway minister Piyush Goyal returned early from a trip to the United States to go to Amritsar on Saturday.
Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh called off a trip to Israel and rushed to visit the injured in hospital, where he ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident.
India's huge railway network is notorious for accidents, including scores who die while crossing the tracks illegally or falling off over-capacity trains.
A 2012 government report described the loss of 15,000 passengers to rail accidents every year in India as a "massacre". The government has pledged $137 billion over five years to modernise the crumbling network.
In 1981, seven carriages from a train fell into a river as it crossed a bridge in the eastern state of Bihar, killing between 800 and 1,000 people.
But nearly every month there are accidents involving trains that derail or hit vehicles on crossings. In April, 13 children were killed when a train hit their school bus. In November 2016, the Patna-Indore express derailed in Uttar Pradesh state in the middle of the night, killing 139 people.
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India train disaster families protest amid anger over safety
India train disaster families protest amid anger over safety
- Many bodies were badly dismembered and police said identification of the victims could take several days
- The funerals of some victims were held Saturday and the accident brought widespread demands for tough action by authorities
Greenland prepares next generation for mining future
SISIMIUT: At the Greenland School of Minerals and Petroleum, a dozen students in hi-viz vests and helmets are out for the day learning to operate bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators and other equipment.
The Greenlandic government is counting on this generation to help fulfill its dream of a lucrative mining future for the vast Arctic territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.
Founded in 2008, the school, based in El-Sisimiut in the southwest of the island, offers students from across Greenland a three-year post-secondary vocational training.
Apart from their practical classes, the students, aged 18 to 35, also learn the basics of geology, rock mechanics, maths and English.
Teacher Kim Heilmann keeps a watchful eye on his students as they learn to maneuver the heavy equipment.
“I want them to know it’s possible to mine in Greenland if you do it the right way,” he told AFP.
“But mostly the challenge is to make them motivated about mining,” he added.
The remote location of Greenland’s two operational mines, and the ensuing isolation, puts many people off, the school’s director Emilie Olsen Skjelsager said.
A Danish autonomous territory, Greenland gained control over its raw materials and minerals in 2009.
The local government relies heavily on Danish subsidies to complement its revenues from fishing, and is hoping that mining and tourism will bring it financial independence in the future so that it can someday cut ties with Denmark.
“The school was created because there is hope for more activities in mining, but also to have more skilled workers in Greenland for heavy machine operating and drilling and blasting, and exploration services,” Olsen Skjelsager said.
By the end of their studies, some of the students — “a small number, maybe up to five” — will go on to work in the mines.
The rest will work on construction sites.
- Lack of skills -
Greenland is home to 57,000 people, and has historically relied on foreign workers to develop mining projects due to a lack of local know-how.
“We have some good people that can go out mining and blasting and drilling and all that kind of stuff,” explained Deputy Minister of Minerals Resources, Jorgen T Hammeken-Holm.
“But if you have a production facility close to the mining facility, then you need some technical skills in these processing facilities,” he said.
“There is a lack of educated people to do that.”
Going forward, geologists, engineers and economists will be needed, especially as Greenland’s traditional livelihoods of hunting and fishing are expected to gradually die out as professions.
The students’ tuition is paid by the Greenland government, which also gives them a monthly stipend of around 5,000 kroner ($800).
Inside the school, a glass case displays some of the minerals that lie — or are believed to lie — under Greenland, including cryolite, anorthosite and eudialyte, which contains rare earth elements essential to the green and digital transitions.
“New mine sites have been searched (for) all over Greenland,” said Angerla Berthelsen, a 30-year-old student who hopes to find a job in the mining sector one day.
There are “lots of possibilities” in Greenland, he said, sounding an optimistic note.
- Doubts over deposits -
But questions remain about Greenland’s actual resources, with the existence and size of the deposits still to be confirmed.
According to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Greenland is home to 24 of the 34 critical raw materials identified by the EU as essential for the green and digital transitions.
“A large variety of geological terrains exists, which have been formed by many different processes. As a result, Greenland has several types of metals, minerals and gemstones,” it says in a document on its website.
“However, only in a few cases have the occurrences been thoroughly quantified, which is a prerequisite for classifying them as actual deposits,” it stressed.
Deputy minister Hammeken-Holm said it was “more or less a guess” for now.
“Nobody knows actually.”
In addition, the island — with its harsh Arctic climate and no roads connecting its towns — currently doesn’t have the infrastructure needed for large-scale mining.
There are currently only two operational mines on the island — one gold mine in the south, and one for anorthosite, a rock containing titanium, on the west coast.
The Greenlandic government is counting on this generation to help fulfill its dream of a lucrative mining future for the vast Arctic territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.
Founded in 2008, the school, based in El-Sisimiut in the southwest of the island, offers students from across Greenland a three-year post-secondary vocational training.
Apart from their practical classes, the students, aged 18 to 35, also learn the basics of geology, rock mechanics, maths and English.
Teacher Kim Heilmann keeps a watchful eye on his students as they learn to maneuver the heavy equipment.
“I want them to know it’s possible to mine in Greenland if you do it the right way,” he told AFP.
“But mostly the challenge is to make them motivated about mining,” he added.
The remote location of Greenland’s two operational mines, and the ensuing isolation, puts many people off, the school’s director Emilie Olsen Skjelsager said.
A Danish autonomous territory, Greenland gained control over its raw materials and minerals in 2009.
The local government relies heavily on Danish subsidies to complement its revenues from fishing, and is hoping that mining and tourism will bring it financial independence in the future so that it can someday cut ties with Denmark.
“The school was created because there is hope for more activities in mining, but also to have more skilled workers in Greenland for heavy machine operating and drilling and blasting, and exploration services,” Olsen Skjelsager said.
By the end of their studies, some of the students — “a small number, maybe up to five” — will go on to work in the mines.
The rest will work on construction sites.
- Lack of skills -
Greenland is home to 57,000 people, and has historically relied on foreign workers to develop mining projects due to a lack of local know-how.
“We have some good people that can go out mining and blasting and drilling and all that kind of stuff,” explained Deputy Minister of Minerals Resources, Jorgen T Hammeken-Holm.
“But if you have a production facility close to the mining facility, then you need some technical skills in these processing facilities,” he said.
“There is a lack of educated people to do that.”
Going forward, geologists, engineers and economists will be needed, especially as Greenland’s traditional livelihoods of hunting and fishing are expected to gradually die out as professions.
The students’ tuition is paid by the Greenland government, which also gives them a monthly stipend of around 5,000 kroner ($800).
Inside the school, a glass case displays some of the minerals that lie — or are believed to lie — under Greenland, including cryolite, anorthosite and eudialyte, which contains rare earth elements essential to the green and digital transitions.
“New mine sites have been searched (for) all over Greenland,” said Angerla Berthelsen, a 30-year-old student who hopes to find a job in the mining sector one day.
There are “lots of possibilities” in Greenland, he said, sounding an optimistic note.
- Doubts over deposits -
But questions remain about Greenland’s actual resources, with the existence and size of the deposits still to be confirmed.
According to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Greenland is home to 24 of the 34 critical raw materials identified by the EU as essential for the green and digital transitions.
“A large variety of geological terrains exists, which have been formed by many different processes. As a result, Greenland has several types of metals, minerals and gemstones,” it says in a document on its website.
“However, only in a few cases have the occurrences been thoroughly quantified, which is a prerequisite for classifying them as actual deposits,” it stressed.
Deputy minister Hammeken-Holm said it was “more or less a guess” for now.
“Nobody knows actually.”
In addition, the island — with its harsh Arctic climate and no roads connecting its towns — currently doesn’t have the infrastructure needed for large-scale mining.
There are currently only two operational mines on the island — one gold mine in the south, and one for anorthosite, a rock containing titanium, on the west coast.
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