The virus trains: How unplanned lockdown chaos spread Covid-19 across India

It has become clear that the special trains operated by the government to ease suffering - and to counteract a disastrous lack of lockdown planning - played a significant role in spreading the virus

The crowds surged through the gates, fought their way up the stairs of the 160-year-old station, poured across the platforms and engulfed the trains.

It was May 5, around 10 a.m. Surat was beastly hot, 106 degrees. Thousands of migrant laborers were frantic to leave — loom operators, diamond polishers, mechanics, truck drivers, cooks, cleaners, the backbone of Surat’s economy. Two of them were Rabindra and Prafulla Behera, brothers and textile workers, who had arrived in Surat a decade ago in search of opportunity and were now fleeing disease and death.

Rabindra stepped aboard carrying a bag stuffed with chapatis. His older