he added. Lakshman T Basapur, a new recruit of the railway department, was travelling in S-7 bogie along with his brother Venkappa to report for work on the first, said: "I was sleeping on the upper berth and there was a huge jerk. I fell on the floor of the train and realised it had met with an accident killing passengers travelling in the general compartment bogie just behind the locomotive. I was lucky enough as I suffered only minor injuries caused by the fall." CNN IBN, in its final report on the crash, stated that as many as 25 passengers, who were in deep sleep, died and over 100 others were injured. Most of the victims were from Karnataka. Among the deceased, 17 were in the women's compartment which took the maximum impact and the remaining were in a sleeper coach and a general bogie next to it. While 24 passengers died on the spot, another person, identified as Maganappa, died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Pavagada in Karnataka. The bodies in the general bogie were charred, making identification difficult. Probing Safety engineers, who were part of the rescue special that steamed in from Bangalore to Penukonda in the wake of the accident, said the loss of lives could have been avoided if only the loco pilot had been alert. Under such circumstances, the loco pilot should not have overlooked the danger signal that denied him entry to the station until the goods train moved out of Penukonda railway station, said experts after a preliminary examination of the accident spot. Nevertheless, M.Y. Ratnam, a loco pilot with the South Central Railway's Guntakal zone, and co-pilot Balaraju escaped, probably because they jumped out of the train immediately after applying the emergency brake. Had they not applied the brake, the impact of the collision would have spread to more coaches increasing the toll, the safety engineers said. Speaking to The Hindu, the guard of the Hampi Express, Bhagwan, said he had no clue that the train had actually jumped a danger signal that denied entry into Penukonda station. He said that he was among the first to run into the station for help and denied rumours that himself or the pilots tried to escape. Meanwhile, experts in the signalling system for the railways at Guntakal said an enquiry into the incident would bring out the truth. They denied any