Families in need of help are still looking for their loved ones three days after India's worst train accident, which claimed over 275 lives. According to Vineet Khare of the BBC, bodies are being kept in a business park in the Balasore district of the state of Odisha because morgues are at capacity.
The NOCCi Business Park, which has large offices, an outdoor theater, and other amenities, is crowded with people who come to work there on an average day.
But on Sunday, the expansive 10-acre property, which is situated outside of Balasore, appeared deserted. Only family members of those killed in the train crash came looking for their loved ones that day, and they were the only visitors.
Over 150 bodies have been transported to the business center since the accident on Friday night, according to a representative on the scene who spoke to the BBC. Information about some of the missing people has also been provided by the location.
Over 1,000 people were hurt and 275 people died in the crash on Friday night.
We ran into a sobbing Seema Choudhary from the Malda town of West Bengal state outside.
She had been searching for her husband, Deepankar, for hours and was beginning to lose heart.
She sobbed as she said, "I've been to the hospital, I've looked through the bodies, but I can't find him.
In the state capital of Bhubaneswar, where many of the deceased have been relocated, she promised to check hospitals.
From the same town, Kanchan Choudhary, was nearby. In search of her husband, she had also visited numerous hospitals.
But I was unable to locate him, she claims.
Given the scope of the disaster, local officials claim they are doing everything in their power to assist the families in finding their loved ones, but the process has been chaotic.
A glass door at the business park opens into a large, divided-into-two hall.
Numerous bodies are spread out on one side of a large black plastic sheet that is spread out on the ground. The enormous amounts of ice that had been used to slow the decomposition of bodies have now melted, leaving pools of water all over the sheet.
Around the bodies are a broken mobile, some clothing, a tobacco box, and a wallet that may be the victims'.
On the other side of the barrier, a projector displays images of the deceased on a screen to assist families in locating the departed.
Many people remained motionless, their gaze fixed on the picture slides as they changed.
More dead people's pictures had been left on tables close by; these belonged to those who had been taken from the business park to the local hospitals.
According to a Balasore resident who spoke to the BBC, the air-conditioned hall is big enough to hold all the dead.
The location may not be able to hold the bodies for much longer, according to officials, who are concerned.
Balasore experiences extreme heat, making it difficult to preserve bodies with the available freezing infrastructure. It takes longer to identify the bodies because many families are traveling from distant locations, sometimes from different states.
According to district official Nirlipta Mohanty, "for these reasons, it is getting difficult to keep the dead safe for long.".
The city of Bhubaneswar, which has sizable hospitals and other facilities, is where they are currently attempting to send the bodies, she continued.
According to Ms. Mohanty, they are making every effort to assist the families. For individuals like Sumit Kumar, who had been searching since the previous evening for his relative Neeraj, however, that wasn't sufficient.
Although I was able to find his picture among the bodies, Mr. Kumar claims that he has yet to be located.
The administration should place help desks close to train and bus stations rather than placing them in remote locations, according to Uday Kumar, a social worker working at the business park.
Other site workers express their exhaustion and shock at the extent of the damage.
"I'm miserable. Subrat Mukhi, a municipal employee, said, "I have been working since 8 p.m. last night. My coworkers and I have been working nonstop since Saturday, assisting families in loading bodies into cars and ambulances to transport them to their homes or to the hospital.".
"When I see them, I occasionally begin to cry. I imagine how I would react in a similar manner if I had lost someone, he said.
