A 65-year-old government-run school, which was turned into a temporary mortuary with bodies of around 250 passengers who lost their lives in the triple-train clash stored in it, may be shut with parents unwilling to send their wards to the educational institution.
The students, parents and guardians along with the teachers of the Bahanaga Bazar High School are a scared lot. There is likelihood of the school recording zero-attendance when it will reopen on 19 June after the summer vacation, confided an official of the school and mass education department in Balasore.
“We have received public complaints regarding the unwillingness of parents to send wards to the school. A meeting in this regard has been held. We are waiting for a written submission from the school managing committee. If the committee desires so, we may dismantle the asbestos-roofed school rooms and rebuild the school building. If the school rebuilding work is approved, the students will be shifted to a nearby school for classroom teaching in a temporary measure,” said Balasore Collector Dattatraya Bhausaheb Shinde.
It may be noted here that the bodies of train crash victims in Bahanaga Bazar were shifted to the school immediately after the recovery from the mangled coaches. Later, the bodies were relocated to a spacious building on the outskirts of Balasore town. Later the unidentified corpses were shifted to morgues in Bhubaneswar-based hospitals.
The memories of nightmarish experience of the tragedy are deeply entrenched in the memory of locals of Bahanaga, who were first responders and did commendable work in rescuing the survivors.