Chennai: A preliminary report of a railway probe into the accident at St Thomas Mount here on 24 July, in which five people fell from a train and died, has said it was caused due to their hanging or leaning “outside the coach dimensions.”
Railway safety commissioner K A Manoharan, who is probing the accident, classified it under the category ‘error in engineering construction and maintenance’ and ‘error in passengers method of travel’ (projecting outside the dimensions of the coach while travelling), the report said.
As a result of the accident, five people were killed and four were injured grievously, it said.
According to the provisional findings of the commissioner, the incident was caused due to “passengers hanging/leaning outside the coach dimensions coming in contact with infringing concrete pale fencing at St Thomas Mount who, while falling down, pulled other passengers down,” the report said.
According to officials, five passengers travelling on the footboard of a crowded suburban train during rush hour died after crashing into a concrete track fence at St Thomas Mount railway station on 24 July.