Signal failure likely responsible for tragic Odisha railway accident; Minister

The Odisha rail accident, according to India's railway minister, may have been caused by a "change in electronic interlocking" rather than a signal problem.
Later, Ashwini Vaishnaw claimed that the cause and those accountable for the deadly three-train collision in eastern India had been found, but she made no further mention of them.  Instead of a failure, the Indian Railway Board stated that "some kind of signalling interference" had occurred.

793 of the 1,175 injured patients who were sent to the hospital were released. Some families are still looking for missing members of their families.  Trains are guided safely along the track by the electronic interlocking system used in railway signaling, which establishes routes for each train in a certain area.

The Indian Railway Board's Jaya Verma Sinha stated at a press conference on Sunday that both passenger trains had arrived at the Balasore district station within seconds of one another at the proper speed of under 130kph (81mph) while receiving a green signal, suggesting that it was safe to do so.
She claimed that although the passenger trains were planned to pass one another on the main tracks, the Coromandel Express smashed into an iron ore-loaded freight train on the loop line, forcing the engine and some coaches to lift over the top of the heavy goods carriages. According to her, the freight train was not derailed or even moved during the collision because the passenger train received the entire force of the impact.

The derailed Coromandel Express impacted two of the Howrah Superfast Express's rear coaches as it was about to pass in the opposite direction.  Investigations suggested "some kind of a signalling interference" rather than a breakdown, according to Ms. Verma Sinha, who said there was "no issue with the electronic interlocking system."

"All that will come out after the inquiry," she continued. "Whether it was manual, whether it was inadvertent, whether it was connected to weather, whether it was related to wear and tear or whether it was a maintenance failure.