Sharma immediately started helping evacuate the injured. Because of a wrong signal, the Puroshottam Express traveling at 110 km an hour had plowed into the stalled Kalindi Express from behind, killing more than 300 and injuring 220. The accident also created the kind of hellish spectacle that occurs when men and machines run spectacularly afoul of one another. Derailed cars that toppled down a 9-m embankment snapped power lines, and some passengers who survived the impact were then electrocuted in their berths. In the following days, rescuers laid bodies around the site and posted Polaroid photos of corpses and fragments at Firozabad station to aid searching relatives, creating a monumentally gruesome mural of sudden death and dismemberment.
Locals say they even caught some policemen removing wallets and jewelry from the dead.
India's rail system, with 63,000 kilometers of track, is one of the largest in the world and one of the most antiquated. Built by the British during the Raj, the railways remain the country's principal means of travel and shipping. But so little money has been invested over the years that the system also qualifies as a rolling railway museum. It has attracted nostalgic train buffs from abroad and appalled foreign engineers. Upkeep deteriorated as the government slashed railway subsidies without allowing operators to raise ticket prices or freight rates significantly.