As giant excavators tried to untangle crushed trains Saturday at the scene of India’s worst rail disaster in decades, a solemn scene was playing out at a small school a few hundred yards away.
In humid air filled with the odor of human flesh, relatives went through the harrowing exercise of identifying their loved ones from about 120 dead bodies lined up on the ground after the crash Friday night.
Among those searching was Miyah Jan Mullah, who had come from neighboring West Bengal to look for his son, Musavir, who had been on his way to his tailoring job in Chennai. When Mullah finally found Musavir’s body, most of it was burned, but his face was largely intact.