As the Coromandel Express train left Shalimar station at 3.20pm on Friday, its carriages were packed to the rafters with migrant labourers, daily wage workers, students and commuters, many seeking opportunity hundreds of miles away in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, the train’s final destination.
Among them was Chandan Roy, 38, a mason, who was heading south for employment. Yet he would never make it. Instead, on Sunday morning, his father-in-law, Santosh Roy, 60, was among those desperately searching for his body among piles of the dead.
