We woke up to a burning sensation, recount survivors of Andhra train tragedy

Ananthpur (AP): “We were asleep… All of a sudden, we all woke up to a burning sensation,” said a survivor, who played a good Samaritan to help three fellow passengers escape but lost his wife and uncle in the Bangalore-Nanded Express train fire tragedy. “There were five of us. We were all sleeping.. And suddenly, we all woke up to a burning sensation… There was chaos… We realised that the bogie was burning,” Sharad said while recollecting the horrific experience. He said he helped in breaking open the glass pane of a toilet cabin that enabled three others to escape. “…but I could not save my wife and maternal uncle,” he said, weeping inconsolably. [caption id=“attachment_1311825” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] Another survivor Patil, who was travelling with his father said, “We woke up to the screams of fire fire…Everybody was screaming.” He said they managed to come out of the train and walked a little distance in pitch darkness to a highway, from where they took a bus to Penukonda. From there, they boarded another train and reached Bangalore. “It’s as if we have got a second birth,” Patil said. “It was like Agni Kund,” (fire pit into which oblations are offered) as he watched the burning bogie a little distance away after jumping out, Patil’s father M B Patil, said. “It was all over within 15 minutes,” the senior Patil said. Feeling suffocated and hearing other passengers screaming for help, the senior Patil, who was sleeping on the middle berth, managed jumping out of train and his son followed him. The senior Patil, who suffered minor burn injuries on his leg was proceeding to Ajanta and Elora. PTI