The locomotive and five coaches of the Kolkata–Sairang Express derailed at Digaru railway station in Assam on Wednesday morning, railway officials said, with all passengers safe and no injuries reported. The derailment disrupted services on the route, and restoration work was under way as railway staff worked to clear the tracks and move the affected coaches.
The train, No. 13125, was travelling from Kolkata towards Sairang in Mizoram when the derailment happened at Digaru, near Guwahati, in the early hours of the morning. Railway officials said the locomotive and five coaches came off the tracks at the station, and that passengers in the affected coaches were moved to safety. No casualties or injuries have been reported, and the remaining coaches were detached so that the journey could continue.
Digaru is a station on the busy line that connects Assam with the north-eastern states, and the derailment affected a number of services on the route. Trains scheduled to pass through the section were controlled at different stations while restoration work continued, and railway officials said they expected services to return to normal once the tracks had been inspected and cleared.
The Northeast Frontier Railway, which operates the line, said its senior officials were at the site supervising the restoration work. The cause of the derailment has not yet been established, and railway officials said an inquiry would be held in the usual way to determine what happened and whether any safety measures need to be strengthened.
The Kolkata–Sairang Express is one of the key long-distance services linking West Bengal with Mizoram, and it carries passengers across some of the most challenging terrain in the Indian railway network. The route passes through Assam's flood-prone plains and the hill sections of the north-east, where the tracks are vulnerable to slips and washouts, particularly during and after the monsoon.
Wednesday's incident is the second derailment in Assam in less than a fortnight. On 29 October, the front trolley of the locomotive hauling the Silchar–Guwahati Express derailed in the Lumding–Badarpur hill section, disrupting services on that route. All passengers were reported safe in that incident too, and the train was short-terminated at Badarpur. Railway officials said the two incidents were unrelated, but both have drawn attention to the condition of the tracks in the region.
Indian Railways has invested heavily in track renewal and safety in recent years, and derailments with no injuries are a reminder of how far the system has come, as well as of the risks that remain. The network carries more than 20 million passengers a day, and even a minor derailment can strand thousands of travellers and disrupt freight movement across a region.
For the passengers on board the Kolkata–Sairang Express, the morning will have been frightening, but the outcome was the best that could be hoped for. Railway staff moved quickly to evacuate the affected coaches, and the fact that no one was hurt is a credit to the train's crew and to the emergency procedures that swung into action. Passengers were accommodated in the remaining coaches, and the train was able to continue its journey once the affected vehicles had been detached.
Restoration work at Digaru is expected to take several hours, and railway officials said they would issue a further update once the tracks had been cleared and services restored. In the meantime, passengers planning to travel on the route have been advised to check the status of their trains before setting out.
The incident will now be the subject of a formal inquiry, as is standard practice after any derailment. Investigators will examine the track, the rolling stock and the circumstances of the morning to establish the cause, and their findings will feed into the railway's safety programme. For now, the relief in Assam is that a derailment that could have been far worse ended with no injuries and no loss of life.
