NEW DELHI: A staggering 1,217 lives were lost daily in accidents in 2023, an increase of around 3% over the previous year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report. While fatalities due to forces of nature, such as lightning, avalanche, flood and landslide, saw a decline of nearly 20%, the overall increase in deaths — more than 4.4 lakh in 2023 — was on account of other reasons, like road and rail accidents, electrocution, poisoning, sudden deaths, stampede, falls and deaths by animals.Traffic accidents — road and rail — had the maximum share of around 45% of all such deaths, followed by sudden deaths (14.3%) and drowning (8.5%) in 2023, data showed.

Accidental deaths

While road crashes claimed around 1.74 lakh lives — a little more than the road transport ministry’s report of 1.73 lakh for the same period — deaths on railway track and crossings claimed 24,000 lives. Speeding was reason for nearly 59% of all road fatalities.The report mentioned that Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh reported maximum fatalities in accidents at railway crossings, accounting for 1,007 deaths, which is 45% of the total 2,242 fatalities in this category.In the case rail accidents — a different category under the NCRB — 15,878 (73%) of 21,803 deaths were due to “fall from trains or collision with people at track”. Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh reported the maximum number of fatalities in rail accidents — 3,445 and 3,149 respectively.In 2023, among all rail accidents, there were 56 cases due to fault of driver while another 43 mishaps took place due to mechanical defects, such as poor design, track faults, bridge or tunnel collapse.The report stated that there was a 12.3% increase in sudden deaths, which includes heart attacks, in 2023 over the previous year. In total, 63,609 people died due to sudden deaths. Data showed that heart attacks claimed 35,637 lives in 2023 compared to 32,410 in 2022. There was also a 45% spike in the number of people killed in stampedes — which claimed 32 lives — in 2023.The National Crime Records Bureau data collated from states and UTs showed that 1,742 people were killed by animals in 2023, which was 15.4% more than that of 2022.