With the latest three Spoornet railway accidents, South Africa has proudly claimed world leadership in southern hemisphere train crash casualties.
During the rail accident year 2002/03, a total of 123 South African passengers lost their lives in railway accidents. Although this figure seems insignificant when compared with India’s 1 873 losses of life in railway accidents in the same period, a complicated formula determines a so-called ‘fatality ratio” based on the percentage of a country’s population that regularly uses rail transport. This is set against the frequency per week of journeys undertaken and over what distances.
The formula was worked out by two statisticians at Mumbai’s Indira Gandhi University and named after its progenitors: professors Guyban Bannerjee and Cyril Nodijurh.
By application of the Bannerjee-Nodijurh formula, South Africa scored an impressive 0,42 deaths a passenger kilometre, compared with India’s close-running 0,37. The Bannerjee-Nodijurh formula does, however, reveal India to be the Pacific Rim leader in the ‘technical failures” division with the average in 2002/03 the highest ever of 48,67 deaths a month . This category includes such causative factors as signals failure, unreported railtrack damage and sub-standard points maintenance, but specifically excludes driver error, fatigue or other elements such as collisions with livestock and stalled motor buses.
Runners up were the Dominican Republic’s Transportica Expresso Populara with a close third place of 0,29. Fourth place was taken by High Scenic Train Adventures of New Zealand, which only managed a poor 0,21 deaths a passenger kilometre.
A late challenge in the ‘high speed” category came from Japan, with a claim of 230 deaths, 506 severe maimings and 300 minor injuries with the crash of its 350kph Nippon Express, which jumped the rails and ploughed through a crowd of Shinto scientology worshippers. Political railway casualties (underground category) is currently held by Japan for the saran gas attacks of 1998.
An appeal against the results has been lodged by the Indian National Railways Authority (Inra), which argues that the South African figures were artificially inflated by figures relating to deaths on trains not directly caused by accidents. Inra claims the South African figures included casualties caused by criminal activities — muggings, gang-rivalry shootings in the Western Cape and, in several cases, by so-called carriage-top staffriders electrocuted when coming into contact with overhead power cables.
‘A train accident is a train accident,” said Milimjar Naidu, first administrative secretary of Inra. ‘Calling in collateral casualties in order to amplify figures is a form of cheating that is a disgrace to the spirit of the competition. If we took into account the number of deaths caused directly by the eating of food sold to passengers travelling on trains operated by the Delhi Rail Franchise, we would wipe the South Africans off the board.”
The official prize-giving ceremony will be held in Kuala Lumpur in February under the sponsorship of the Pacific Undertaking and Funerals Corporation.