Odisha train tragedy death toll rises to 289

Bhubaneswar, June 13 (IANS) The toll in the tragic triple train accident in Odisha's Balasore on Tuesday rose to 289 with the death of a man from Bihar while undergoing treatment, an official said.

Bijay Paswan, from Bihar's Motihari district, succumbed to his injuries at SCB Medical College and Hospital.

Paswan, along with six others, had boarded the Coromandel Express on June 2 from Howrah to visit Kerala's Palakkad. While one of them had died at the accident spot, another died today.

He was initially admitted to the Balasore district headquarter hospital and then shifted to the central ICU of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack with cervical spine injury and quadriplegia.

"The health condition of Paswan was stable when he was admitted at the hospital. However, his condition gradually deteriorated and yesterday, when his oxygen level started falling, we put him on a ventilator. Medicines given to raise his blood pressure too. Despite all efforts, he could not survive and passed away due to cardiac arrest," Professor Sudhanshu Sekhar Mishra, superintendent, SCB Medical College, said.

He also informed that the condition of another three people under treatment at the hospital is critical.

Kidneys of two other persons are not functioning properly while the brain of another was operated upon and his lungs also not functioning properly, said Mishra.