Two passengers and a sanitation staffer were injured after the head of a big drilling machine crashed into a moving train on the outskirts of Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur on Sunday, officials said.

The incident took place around 10 am when the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (Mumbai)-bound Shalimar Express was passing through Urkura railway station ahead of the Raipur station, a railway public relations official here said.

Earlier, officials had said that a pole located near the tracks fell on the train. The piece of metal was later found to be a “drill machine reamer” which looks like a pole, the official said.

As the train reached Raipur station, rail personnel, including doctors rushed to the affected coach and administered first aid to the injured passengers, the official said.

The injured persons – train passengers Devari Dhivar (30) and Somil Mandal (12) and sanitation staffer Narayan Chandra Bag – were then admitted to a government hospital here, he said.

“The investigation into the accident revealed that it was not a pole. Rather, it was a reamer of a horizontal directional drilling (HDD) machine engaged in drilling work by the state-run electricity company,” the PRO said.

The electricity company was conducting drilling operations beneath the railway tracks. The machine’s reamer was being pulled out when the train was passing through Urkura. But it unexpectedly came out of the ground and hit the train, he said.

The reamer scraped three AC (B4, B5 and B6) and one sleeper (S2) coaches, damaging window pans, and injuring three persons besides causing scratches on the bogies.

The train left for its destination around noon, the official said.

“The state’s electricity department was carrying out unauthorised work and the safety of human lives was compromised. Further investigation into the incident is underway,” the official added.