Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today suspended an engineer over the derailment of Chennai-Mangalore Express and ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Thirty-nine passengers of the Mangalore bound express train were injured after four coaches derailed near Cuddalore district, about 200 km from Chennai, at around 2 AM.
Describing the incident as "unfortunate", Prabhu said an inquiry has been ordered and pending the probe an engineer has been suspended.
He said railways is providing all possible help to affected passengers including relief and facilitating further journey for them.
Lamenting the delay in infrastructure development for long, Prabhu said "rail network needs upgradation and modernisation. Infrastructure was neglected. It cannot be done in a short period."
He said zero accident mission is top priority of railways and steps are being taken to speed up modernisation work.
There is a Board meeting going on in Hyderabad to discuss of possible steps for zero accident mission, he said.
Rail traffic was disrupted due to the derailment. Many trains were diverted due to the incident. Chairman Railway Board is on the job for restoration of the route for traffic.
