It is hope against hope and a test of endurance for the bereaved families who have lost members to the deadliest train crash in Odisha’s Balasore waving photographs of their loved ones. The distraught kin are in no mood to give up hope of having a glimpse of their relatives even if dead.

Giving a decent burial to the bodies remains uppermost in the minds of the grieving family members.

The scene at AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, home to 82 bodies crushed in Friday’s triple-train clash in Bahanaga Bazar in Odisha’s Balasore district, remains disconcerted from the outburst of emotions and anxieties of the grieving relatives that adds to the melancholy.

Since the majority of the people hail from economically weaker sections, accommodation and food adds to their agony. However, they have no option but to stay put till in the alien land till DNA sample matching is done. Help desk counters and DNA sample collection centres continued to be crowded.

Multiple claimants to a single body have triggered chaos and confusion overtaking the grief and anguish of losing the loved ones. There are instances of five to six different families laying claim over the body of a young woman, whose head smashed and limbs mutilated beyond recognition. In several other cases, there is more than one claimant for a particular body.  The bedlam and disarray of this nature is showing no signs of receding almost a week after one of the deadliest train clash in India that has so far accounted for 288 death toll, leaving over 1200 injured with many more reported missing.

Commenting on the prevailing situation in the aftermath of the train tragedy, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange said on Thursday that “people now will have to patiently wait for DNA sample matching. Cases of multiple claims over bodies have come to our notice. It is understandable as majorities of bodies preserved at AIIMS here are disfigured. The Government is sensitive to people’s plight. We have made accommodation and free food for family members who have come here to trace out the bodies. We are ensuring that not a single body is transferred erroneously”.

“Everybody, right from the Central to state government, is promising the moon. No amount of compensation, job for the family members will compensate the trauma we are experiencing. I have undergone DNA testing. I have been told to patiently wait for a week for the diagnosis report and its matching with the samples of the deceased persons,” bemoaned Fani Mandal, a native of neighbouring West Bengal.

He said two of his family members are missing. They had boarded the ill-fated Coromandel Express. He could not find them in the hospitals and morgues. He failed to identify them from the bodies stored in the mortuaries. He has no clue as to what he should do if the samples do not match.

The Odisha government has revised the death toll to 288. The government agencies here claimed that 206 bodies have been handed over to their relatives while 82 bodies are in cold mortuaries in unidentified state. But what has added a chaotic twist to the prevailing situation is that the government agencies in Bihar and West Bengal have reported that 119 passengers are still missing.

The Bihar government in a statement has put the missing persons at 88. Even if the identity of the bodies stored at the AIIMS mortuary is established, there will be no trace of around 40 more missing persons. There is no confusion with regard to the identity of around 100 injured undergoing treatments at various hospitals. Families from other states like Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu are camping here in their unending quest for their loved ones.

The Odisha government officials, however, preferred to remain tight-lipped on the missing reports from Bihar and Bengal. As allegations of underreporting the death toll flew thick and fast, an official who did not want to be named said, “The government has no intention to hide the toll. The district collectors have been asked to cross-check though the rescue operation has already come to an end.”