Indian Railways runs Oxygen Express despite cyclone warning

While Gujarat is on high alert due to the extremely severe Cyclone Tauktae which is going to make landfall at its coast on Monday evening, Indian Railways achieved another milestone by crossing its own mark by delivering 150 metric tonnes of Liquid Medical Oxygen from the state to other parts of the country.

New Delhi: While Gujarat is on high alert due to the extremely severe Cyclone Tauktae which is going to make landfall at its coast on Monday evening, Indian Railways achieved another milestone by crossing its own mark by delivering 150 metric tonnes of Liquid Medical Oxygen from the state to other parts of the country.

Gujarat has an average of 134 MT of LMO per day being logged since 20 days. Today, in spite of the alert of Cyclone Tauktae, Railways carried Oxygen(LMO) from its terminals at Hapa, Mundra and Vadodara in Gujarat’s cyclone-affected areas without any break.

While explaining about the preparations of Indian Railways in view of Cyclone, Chairman Railway Board Suneet Sharma said, "We are ready in all aspects. We have already regulated our trains. We have also kept our Disaster Management Trains with tree cutters, generator sets, and portable drinking water. We have also kept our patrolling squads, consisting of mechanical, electrical and engineering staff at various locations to see that there is no gap especially if there is a communication issue, trees fall on the tracks."

He further added, "We have already issued a warning to all our staff at various locations to be on the lookout. We have installed anemometers at various stations to know the wind speed so that Station masters can accordingly regulate or stop the trains. We are in touch with the state governments both in terms of train movement as well as the supply of Oxygen so that minimal damage can be observed."

Railways ran 2 Oxygen Expresses early morning today from Gujarat, one from Vadodara which left at 4 am with 2 RORO trucks and 45 MT of LMO for delivery in Delhi region and the other left Hapa at 5.30 am with 6 tankers loaded with 106 MT of Oxygen for deliveries in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi region. Along with this, Railways has achieved another milestone on Monday by delivering 10000 MT LMO across the country by Oxygen Expresses.

It may be noted that Oxygen Express started its deliveries on 24th April in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT. In slightly over 23 days time, Railways has upscaled its Oxygen Express operations to deliver more than 10300 MT of Medical Oxygen to 13 States. Till now, 521 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 2652 MT in UP, 431 MT to MP, 1290 MT in Haryana, 564 MT in Telangana, 40 MT in Rajasthan, 361 MT in Karnataka, 200 MT in Uttarakhand, 231 MT in Tamil Nadu, 40 MT in Punjab, 118 MT in Kerela and nearly 3734 MT in Delhi.