“It sounded like a bomb!”
At 5h30 March 17th,
1982, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son, who was a railwayman serving at Bau Ca station, in
Tay Hoa commune, Trang Bom district, Dong Nai province, was awakened by a loud rumble
noise, seemingly coming from right next to him. He rushed outside to find out
what had happened and witnessed a frightening scene: a giant train was thrown
off the tracks at a curve, the locomotive slid up a small hill and destroyed a
cottage on it, nearly 10 other carriages were scattered in the meadow, and only
the last 3 ones left were still on the rails. Dead bodies were lying, most of
them were shattered to pieces, the whole area was covered with blood and flesh,
some survivors who were trapped in the carriages cried for help. Approximately more
than 100 people died at that moment.
Nearly all people in
Tan Hoa commune were awakened and rushed to the scene of the train crash to
participate in the rescue. They went to National Highway 1A to stop the trucks
and asked them to take the injured to the emergency, the trucks going east then
took them to Cho Ray hospital (Ho Chi Minh city), while the trucks ran in the
opposite direction carried people to Long Khanh hospital. Both hospitals until
noon on the 17th were overloaded and those who were not seriously injured were
transferred to the clinics. The death toll later reached 160.
In the afternoon, the
railway agency's vehicles carried the coffins to the scene. The bodies were
photographed, fingerprinted, and numbered by authorities. Those who had identity
papers were marked with red paint on wooden tombstones, those who didn’t were
marked as "anonymous". There were corpses chopped into pieces,
scattered and mixed together, so initially, the death toll recorded was up to
200.
Identified victims were
sent back to their hometowns for burials. Young men carried anonymous coffins
to the designated site about 4km from the site, they dug 200 graves and buried
wooden coffins in them. Each tomb has a card that reads "anonymous
tomb". The last coffin was placed at midnight, ending a tragic day of the
commune. The wreckage and blood at the scene took several days to clean up.
There was a lot of
speculation about the cause of the train crash, some even suggesting it was by
terrorists. The incident has also never been carefully investigated. But the
most reliable theory is the story told by a survivor, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dao: When
the train stopped at Long Khanh station, the police stationed at the station
platform to arrest rubber smugglers.
At that time, train passengers
often did not have any ticket, they carried goods waiting at the stations so
that when the train stopped, they jumped on, and when they got to their
destinations, they jumped off. Among them are rubber smugglers
The train driver
probably knew in advance, so he did not stop at this station but only slowed
down to get a card called a permit for the train to pass through the station.
Taking that opportunity, some traders jumped onto the train, removed the bars
that acted as a connector to connect the carriage brakes to the locomotive, and
then loaded goods on the carriages.
Mrs. Dao said that all
traders know this way. The bars are in between of carriages, as long as they
know how to remove them, the train will be forced to stop for the staff to get
off and reconnect them.
But that day it did not happen, the train was still running and once those bars were removed, the train could not brake. The train accelerated in the dark, everyone in the train was worried and scared, the train staff ran to order everyone to close all the doors and windows. And when it reached that deadly curve, the train was thrown off the tracks.
Bau Ca Station is now
hidden in the residential area. Trains no longer stop at this station and it is
now a house for railroad workers to live in. The C-shaped curve track before
entering the former station has now been straightened. The location of the
accident was about 500 meters from Bau Ca station, now it has become a
residential area and a traffic road. Next to it forms a market. A few years ago
there was a lottery winner. This person has contributed money to build a shrine
to commemorate the victims at the location of the accident. It is still the
only memorial to this tragedy.
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| Memorial at the site of the crash |
Due to the difficulty
of conveying information at that time, very few people knew about the accident.
It was never published in any newspaper and was not disseminated in the media.
There are people who did not know that their loved one has died but only thought
that they had not returned, or were missing. The cemetery was also not paid
attention for a long time, gradually downgraded and damaged, the graves were
also gradually obscured by grass. Almost no one noticed it anymore.
Mrs. Tran Thi Cam, 59 years old, living in Phu Nhuan District (Ho Chi Minh City), said on that train were her brother Tran Thai Phuong (born 1955) and his wife, Tran Thi No. Her wish to "find the graves of her brother and his wife" for many years was still unfinished. Her family finally had the condition to come to Dong Nai in 2014. Her family went to Dong Nai to see the cemetery that was almost unrecognizable. After a little cleaning, she went to find her brother's grave, but among hundreds of anonymous tombs, Mrs. Cam could not find her brother. She lit a cigarette, walked around the cemetery and whispered: “If you are here, make this cigarette stop burning”. The cigarette mysteriously stopped burning when she walked by a grave and after some techniques, it was determined that it was the grave of her brother. Tran Thi Cam finally found him after 32 years.
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| Present-day cemetery with 85 anonymous graves |
Her story spread across
the country and the disaster was reported to the public for the first time.
Many people came to the cemetery to take part in its cleaning and renovation,
some volunteered to contribute money to rebuild the cemetery. Many others have finally
found their loved ones' graves and brought them back for burials, so from the
beginning, there were nearly 200 graves, now there are only 85. At present, Bau
Ca Railway Cemetery is a spacious cemetery and has been visited by many people.
As usual, every train passing through this cemetery must have its horn sounding
as an act of commemoration of those who died in the disaster.