The first platform of the Aluva railway station turned into a makeshift labour room when a migrant woman alighted from a train with a newborn, the umbilical cord still unsevered, on Monday morning (June 2).

The 19-year-old woman, a native of Baliguda in Odisha, stepped out of the Patna–Ernakulam Express around 4:10 a.m. Her husband alerted the railway police, who rushed to the spot. She was made to lie down on a bench on the platform.

The railway police and women sweepers quickly formed a cloth screen around her and alerted the Aluva Taluk Hospital. Nurses from the hospital rushed to the station, severed the umbilical cord, and administered first aid.

The mother and her newborn baby girl were then shifted to the Government Medical College, Kalamassery, in an ambulance. According to officials, the woman had gone into labour shortly after the train left Thrissur station and delivered the baby while the train was nearing Nellayi.