Siliguri, Aug. 6 :    Siliguri, Aug. 6:  The pyres crackled, the flames flickered and then licked the dark night sky. Disfigured and rotten, the unclaimed dead of Gaisal were given a mass cremation on the banks of the Balason river tonight. Workers stacked wood from a nearby forest reserve into about 65 pyres laid out on the banks of the river which meanders through the Himalayan foothills. Almost every pyre had two bodies. In the backdrop of the Kanchenjungha, the bodies were consigned to flames by volunteers in the presence of thousands of local villagers and government officials. The bodies were brought in coffins, wrapped in white sheets or even polythene. As the religion of those being cremated could not be ascertained, prayers were recited from holy books of all faiths. The collision between the Avadh-Assam Express and the Brahmaputra Mail on Monday claimed 287 lives. The state administration ordered the mass cremation as the decomposing bodies were posing a health hazard. Urban affairs minister Ashok Bhattacharya was present. Two special trains, one from Delhi and the other from Guwahati, carrying relatives of the victims, were to have reached New Jalpaiguri today. While the train from Delhi reached at four this evening, the other was delayed. The special train brought 200 passengers, but only 60 of them were relatives of victims. Others, like Gambhir Sarki of Naxalbari, hitched a free ride without any qualms. Zulekha Bibi and Swapan Majumdar were among those who were taken to the New Jalpaiguri railway hospital. They walked past the white shrouds in the morgue. As hospital staffers lifted the sheets to show the faces of the dead, both fainted. Later, they said it was impossible to identify their loved ones. They were taken to the North Bengal Medical College morgue, where about 150 corpses have been kept. Here, too, Zulekha Bibi studied the bloated remains and finally pointed to one body. ?That looks like my nephew. But I don?t know. In my mind, I picture him lying in a hospital bed with just a minor cut. His parents are dead. His two other brothers may have been with him. I?ll have to check,?? she muttered incoherently. Most relatives seemed as shocked as Zulekha Bibi. Only five bodies were identified today from the pictures tacked to hospital walls. As district officials said they would not wait all night for identification, arguments broke out between families of victims over bodies. Two families fought over the body of a boy who doctors said would not have been more than 14. D.K. Jha said he had come to identify his family friends, three brothers and their mother. ?I claimed three bodies and cremated them. When I came to take Kundan, I saw another family laying claim to his body,?? Jha said. The district administration had to intervene. While they squabbled, others trooped in to take corpses. The government has announced that relatives of victims would get Rs 25,000 each on the spot and Rs 3.75 lakh later as compensation. District officials said one man managed to pocket the money by claiming a body.