The great Ariyalur tragedy
A true incident, no a narration of a ghostly accident.
After resigning my job as Junior Engineer in the then electricity department of the Government of Tamilnadu from Mettur, I was in my native place Ariyalur for about a month, looking for a new job. It was then that the great tragedy occurred. It was November 23, 1956 , Friday, a dark day in the annals of Indian railways. I was half awake rolling in my bed. It was a cool early morning and the time was about 5:30 A.M. Just then I heard the express train passing over Vanchiyam (வஞ்சியம்) bridge making thunderous noise, typical of any train passing over a bridge. Usually I used to be disturbed by this noise of Tuticorin Express train crossing Vanchiyam bridge around 4:00A.M. everyday. So I thought that the Express was running late by an hour and a half that day. Within the next half an hour, a villager rushed to our street to inform whoever was awake and available at that time shouting that " மருதையாத்துலே வண்டி விழுந்துடுத்து " (Vandi had fallen in the river Marudaiyaru.). When he said "Vandi" , I thought the man was referring to some cart, may be a bullock cart that had fallen in the river. Little did I realise then that he was referring to the express train, because in our village parlance, a train is also generally referred to as " Rail Vandi" or simply " Vandi". He continued saying that the river was under heavy floods and the train had sunk into it with the Marudaiyaru bridge collapsing under the impact of the unprecedented flood in the river. This news had a devastating effect on me and and I immediately jumped out of my bed to join the group of persons in the road listening and talking to the villager, raising all sorts of doubts about the accident thinking that the villager was bluffing, but the poor villager had no answers for all their queries. But the seriousness with which the villager was talking made us feel that there must be some element of truth in what he had said and so all of us decided to go to the accident site and see things for ourselves. The venue of the accident was nearly two and a half miles from our place and we all rushed towards it, gathering rumours en route about the magnitude of the disaster, the fury of the river, and how and why it all happened.
Even when we were half a mile away from the site of accident, we found that there was knee deep water all over. We had never before seen Marudhaiyaru ( which was a wild river and which usually got flash floods ) in spate swelling to such an extent, swirling and whirling with full rage as on that day at that moment. It was water, water everywhere and we were warned and prevented by the local people who were knowledgeable about the area from moving closer to the railway bridge. There were horrendous cries from hundreds of survivors from the compartments shouting for help. Actually what had happened was that in that early morning due to heavy rains upstream, the river got heavily flooded, with the water level in the river rising substantially above the railway track, submerging the track and the bridge completely and the driver had been running the train at its full stipulated speed in that semi darkness, unaware of the fact that the earthen embankment on the southern end of the bridge had been completely eroded with the sleepers washed away by floods and the rails hanging loosely without any support. When the train reached that spot in top speed, immediately the engine plunged into the river and got dragged to some distance before coming to a dead halt. At the impact that was created, part of the the engine went under water and part of the tender got bent, while the first four compartments got derailed and partly submerged under water, hanging precariously. The succeeding compartments were mostly above water on the track itself and some of the people in those compartments jumped into the river to save themselves from the disaster that caught them unawares not knowing of the dangerous swirls in the river, only to be washed away by the ravaging floods. Walking along the track , a rescue team from the Ariyalur station side comprising police and medical and other personnel reached the spot and tried to save as many lives as possible, warning others in the compartments just to remain in their place until they reached them. Meanwhile a relief train from Virudhachalam reached the spot in the next half an hour and by that time, water level had started receding and the onlookers started moving towards the survivors to help them. Ear splitting and heart rending cries filled the air, many weeping, crying and shouting for help and many others wanting to know whether their kith and kin who travelled with them were safe and if so where. Bodies from the derailed compartments were removed with very great difficulty using welding machines and cutters. Passengers who were trapped on the top branches of the thorny trees nearby were rescued after some struggle and many good Samaritans came forward to extend unsolicited help to all those under distress in spite of the risk involved in such operations. The world is full of equal number of good and bad people and so even as succour was forthcoming from a sizeable number of people, there were bad elements in the village nearby who started exploiting the situation to their advantage unmindful of the depth and gravity of suffering of those struggling and surviving. Personal belongings of the victims were mercilessly looted and the bodies were thrown back and the struggling survivors pushed into the river. As per eye witness, the toll might be about 600, but as per official reports, it was restricted to 150. The bodies that were recovered were kept at the railway station for identification purposes and it was a pathetic and heart breaking sight to see the passengers and the relatives thronging in the station with the fond hopes of seeing their kith and kin alive, waiting near the dead bodies on the hope that they were likely to come back alive. I saw one person crying for two full days not able to believe and stomach the truth that his son was dead. The big rumour that was doing rounds at that time was about the death of one Savithri Ganesh who was mistaken for the famous star actor (actress) of those days Savithri who had just then married Gemini Ganesan, another famous actor of yester years. This wrong news spread like wildfire throughout the state until it was denied by the persons concerned. Later it was established that the Savithri Ganesh under question involved in the accident was different and she was one among a group of passengers going to Kanadukathan near Karaikudi. To contribute to the general tension and uncertainty, there was a floating rumour at local level at Ariyalur that one Rayar, a newspaper agent, the only one from Ariyalur to get into the train at Ariyalur station that day, was carried away in the floods and his body could not be traced. For nearly ten days, his people waited to know about his whereabouts and in the absence of any information, they started performing his tenth day rites and suddenly and as if cinematically, right at that time came the news that Mr Rayar was alive in Dalmiapuram hospital. It seemed that he was thrown out of the train as he was travelling on the footboard and was caught on some tree branch on the southern side of the bridge which was inaccessible to the people at the Ariyalur side and was picked up by a team who came from Dalmiapuram side and admitted him, who was then in a semiconscious state in the hospital there. Only after eight days, he regained full consciousness and realised what had happened and where he was and wanted the hospital authorities to inform his family immediately about his survival and to ask them to come there to take him back home. Meanwhile Lal Bahadur Sastry who was then the central Railway minister resigned taking moral responsibility for the accident. Thereafter to see such men of high nobility, integrity and character had become a thing of rarity in Indian politics. (It is an irony of fate however that the man who took on himself the moral responsibility for the accident should have died after a few years in Tashkent under mysterious circumstances).
Ariyalur tragedy was the talk of the country for the next few days since railway accidents were few and far between in those days and the name of Ariyalur, a remote unknown village till then got catapulted occupying the front page of most newspapers even though for wrong reasons. The train service in the chord line connecting Thiruchy and Villupuram was restored within the next two days. Meanwhile I had an appointment order from PWD deputing me to The Industries and Commerce Department as junior engineer and posting me at Madras. The due date for joining was already over. But I decided to try my luck and leave for Madras to meet the officer concerned who had issued my appointment order, as soon as the train services in the section were restored on the third day after the accident. Many of my people were very apprehensive and even warned me to avoid the travel. My only argument was that for some more time, there won’t be any possibility of another railway accident and so my sojourn to Madra now will be safe. When I got into the train for Madras, ( usually the trains to Madras reached our village in the dead of night) people who used to show wry faces when disturbed in the middle of the night became curious to get first hand information about the accident from me. I had to narrate the whole incident, oh, sorry, the accident in great detail to each and every one I met since then on roads, in buses, in houses and so on. As one belonging to Ariyalur and as a witness of the ghory accident, I drew the attention of many.bI reached Madras safe and sent a telegram to my people that my trip was quite safe.
I went to see the Superintending Engineer, who had made a name for himself as being very cantankerous and tough and when he came to know that I was from Ariyalur gave me a seat, a gesture that was rare to expect from a man of his stature to a subordinate in those days, particularly among the engineers of the State Government and when I said that because of the accident, I couldn't come and join the post earlier, he was kind and considerate enough to condone the delay and permitted me to join duty at my earliest convenience. He also became more curious to know the details of the accident and I took a lot of his precious time to present my version of the accident to his satisfaction. Thus this tragedy boosted my stature and I enjoyed the privilege of being treated as a special V.I.P. wherever I went and this continued for the next few days, even though within heart of hearts I was bleeding with agony at the magnitude of the tragedy to which I was a distant witness. But I didn't reveal to anyone the deep dent the tragedy had made in my mind ever since then and even today I get fear tantrums when I think of accidents and become very tense whenever I have to undertake a travel either by bus or car, train or flight.
This tragedy had a cascading effect on the politics of Tamilnadu as well in the 1957 elections and amongst many other slogans for which DMK was famous those days, the one that attracted all during the elections was "அரியலூர் அளகேசரே, ஆண்டது போதாதா, மக்கள் மாண்டது போதாதா?" (Oh, Mr Alagesa of Ariyalur, enough of deaths! And enough of your rule! ). Honourable Mr Alagesan ( who had nothing to do with Ariyalur) was the minister of State in charge of Railways from Tamilnadu at that time and the railway accident came in handy for the DMK party which in a way helped to increase its representation in the state assembly from a mere 15 seats to a convincing 50 seats. While Ariyalur tragedy ended, I never knew that it will be the beginning of another tragedy for the State?
