'... Beyond Recognition': Pain And Struggle To Identify Bodies In Odisha’s Train Tragedy Continues

Nearly a week, after the country witnessed its worst train accident in a decade, over 80 bodies, remain to be identified, as anger and exhaustion fill the minds of friends and family members. On Tuesday, the death toll was revised and reported to be 288.

Revisiting several accounts of people through different media reports narrates to us the harrowing tales of people’s plight concerning the search for their loved ones and identification of bodies.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Krupa Devi detailed the battle to find her father, who boarded the Shalimar-Coromandel Express on Friday morning. When she watched the horrific news on television, she rushed from Bihar to Odisha and since then has been running from one hospital to another in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. But her efforts have not yielded results and she has failed to find her father. Initially, she hoped that he may be among the injured but now she fears that it might not be the case.

Similarly, a report by The Independent shows how families from West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand have failed to locate their people despite large screens at hospitals displaying gory visuals of bodies. Some of the bodies are beyond recognition with limbs missing, faces swollen and eyes protruding.

Due to this reason, families have alleged, there is a lot of confusion among hospitals and morgues, and those are handing over the bodies to wrong families. Fights are breaking out among people over bodies, as they struggle to identify their loved ones.

Meanwhile, due to the scorching summer, officials fear that bodies might start to decompose soon and are making arrangements to freeze them for longer period of time. However, due to lack of space and chaotic situation, they are not hopeful of managing to preserve the bodies for long. ?“As per IPC, we can cremate the bodies after 96 hours if there are no claimants. A mass cremation is a last resort,” a senior official told HT.

Meanwhile, chaos ensued on Tuesday after multiple people placed their claim on a single body amid allegations that officials have been handing over corpses to wrong families, according to a ?report by The Independent. Citing the story of Mohammed Imam Ul Haq, from Bihar, the reports say that while he believes that a child’s body is of his 12-year-old nephew, however, there are “five other people who are claiming the same body” as one of theirs.

This has forced the hospitals to conduct DNA tests to find the righful claimants. In a conversation with Reuters, a person dealing with a similar situation said, ‘‘We are left with no option but to do a DNA test to determine whose body it is. The whole process takes really long. I hope we can claim the body soon.’’

Somewhere between 10 to 33 DNA samples have been collected, according to authorities, and sent for verification. A few cases following the DNA sample match have also been successful in identifying the bodies.

Authorities have also resorted to AI-based technology to trace bodies. According to a report by the Times of India, 64 bodies were identified successfully in 45 cases. The system uses a way to trace the mobile calls and mobile network of the victims and helps the rescue workers to connect with their families.