Two men from Calcutta, who were travelling to Odisha’s Jharsuguda on an official assignment by the Howrah-Mumbai Mail that got derailed in Jharkhand, said they should have arrived at their destination without any hassle had the train’s departure from Howrah not been delayed by three hours on Monday night.

Indrajit Koley, 58, a resident of Ichhapur in Barrackpore, and Sanjay Yadav, 30, who is originally from Odisha’s Bokaro but lives in Howrah’s Dhulagarh, suffered multiple injuries after the train collided with a goods train and derailed at Chakradharpur in Jharkhand early on Tuesday.

Koley and Yadav did not need to be admitted to hospital. They hired cabs for their homes after they were dropped to Tatanagar station by a rescue team on Tuesday morning.

Both are employees of a private company that deals in fabrics and has its head office in the BBD Bag area.

“The train left Howrah three hours late on Monday night. Instead of 7.35pm, our journey started at 10.25pm. Had the original schedule been maintained, the collision could have been avoided and we should have reached Jharsuguda around 3.30am,” said Koley.

The collision happened around 3.45am.

Koley and Yadav were travelling in coach B5. Koley was on lower berth 36 and Yadav on upper berth 35.

“We were sleeping. Sometime after 3.35am there was a loud sound, which was followed by a massive jerk. We were thrown on the floor. My nose hit the small table attached to the wall of the coach between the windows. Before I could react, people in the coach fell on me,” Koley
recounted.

Yadav said he landed on his colleague after falling off his berth. “I could not make out what hit my leg but it started bleeding. I had an excruciating pain in my right hand, too,” Yadav told Metro on his way to Tatanagar station from the accident site on Tuesday morning.

After some time, the two stood back on their feet and tried to find their way out of the coach amid chaos. They switched on the flashlight of their mobile phones and saw the toilet of their coach had been ripped off.

“I will never forget the screams and the sight of blood. So many people were running around. We made our way to the entrance and found that our coach had been separated from the coach in front as the toilet had been ripped off,” Yadav said.

Koley said they helped many co-passengers, especially the elderly, get off the coach.

A number of passengers who were rescued from the derailed train were transported to Tatanagar by bus later in the day.

Koley, whose wife and teenage daughter live with his elder brother’s family, hired a cab that dropped him to Kharagpur.

From there he took a cab home to Barrackpore.

Yadav booked a cab home to Bokaro from Tatanagar.