Odisha Train mishap: Demolition of Bahanaga High School underway
The demolition of a 65-year-old state-run school, which had been converted into a temporary mortuary and housed the bodies of around 250 passengers killed in an Odisha triple-train collision, began on Friday morning.
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Balasore: The demolition of a 65-year-old state-run school, which had been converted into a temporary mortuary and housed the bodies of around 250 passengers killed in an Odisha triple-train collision, began on Friday morning.
The procedure is being carried out at Bahanaga Nodal High School in the Balasore district in the presence of school managing committee members and Works Department officials. According to sources, new classrooms will be built there.
Students and teachers had expressed reluctance to attend classes at the school, where classrooms and the hall were used to line up the bodies, many of them disfigured, with nightmare memories of the tragedy ingrained in their minds. Authorities were concerned that the school would have no students when it reopened after the summer break.
During his visit to the educational institution on Thursday, Balasore Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde stated that the school management committee will decide whether to demolish the specific old building with asbestos roof amid public fears that it is haunted.
He, on the other hand, urged everyone not to spread fear and superstition, instead advocating for efforts to instill a scientific temper in young, impressionable minds.
Plans are also in the works to provide expert counseling to students and teachers, according to school education secretary S Aswathy.
Notably, bodies of Bahanaga Bazar train accident victims were immediately transferred to the school after being extracted from the mangled coaches. Those who remained were later relocated to a large building on the outskirts of Balasore town. The unidentified bodies were later transferred to morgues in Bhubaneswar-area hospitals.
