HYDERABAD: At least 10 persons died and 32 injured when a private air-conditioned Volvo bus from Bhubaneswar to Hyderabad hit a bridge divider on NH-65 and plunged through the gap between the two lanes into a canal from a height of 22 ft near
Mullapadu village in Penuganchiprolu mandal
, 75km away from Vijayawada, in the early hours of Tuesday. The condition of eight passengers is said to be critical.
The accident took place around 5.45am after driver
Adinarayana Reddy
reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the AC Volvo bus (AP 02 TC 7146) through a 3ft high retaining wall of the bridge. DGP Sambasiva Rao blamed rash driving for the mishap. “The bus was cruising at 120kmph at the time of the accident,“ deputy
transport commissioner E Meera Prasad
told TOI.
The injured passengers were rushed to the government hospital in Nandigama for firstaid. Later, the authorities shifted 11 of them to Vijayawada GGH, 13 of them to Andhra Hospital in Gollapudi and eight to Help Hospital. Both the bus dri ver of Tadipatri and cleaner Pattamsetti Prudhvi died on the spot. While at least seven passengers died on the spot, three others succumbed to injuries later. The bus belongs to Diwakar Travels, owned by TDP MLA J C Prabhakar Reddy. Police slapped a case against the travels. The bus is registered in the name of one J C Uma Reddy .
“I was awake when the accident happened. It all happened in a matter of 15 seconds and the next thing I know was I was flung from my back seat next to the driver's seat,“ R Dileep Kumar, who works as an assistant manager in Canara Bank, Shivamogga, told TOI. Eyewitnesses said the bus flew over the median after the driver tried to apply emergency brake some 15metres before the bridge. Many passengers were fast asleep when the Vijayawa da
bus accident occurred. Later, the survivors narrated harrowing ordeals.
“Since it was an AC bus, it took around 15 minutes for me to break the windowpane. I managed to reach the top of the bridge within a few minutes,“ Krishna Vardhan, a
medical representative
who was on the ill-fated bus, said.
“I was asleep till I heard screams of other passengers. A person called out for me and pulled me out of the bus,“ K Bhargavi, who was trembling in the hospital, said. Locals helped the injured passengers to get out of the bus. The deceased have been identified as Nallabothu Krishna Reddy (32) of Suryapet, Baldev Singh (39) of Cuttack, Panga Tulasamma (45) of Santhabommali, Srikakulam, K Madhusudhana Reddy of Hyderabad, Sheik Basha of Vijayawada, Vidyapathi (34) of Odisha, Nallabothu Sekhar Reddy of Suryapet, Pattamsetti Prudhvi of Ganapavaram village, Guntur, Mohd Tayyab of Bholakpur, Hyderabad and bus driver Adinarayana Reddy of Tadiptri, Anantapur.
Most passengers boarded the bus in Bhubaneswar (9), Srikakulam (15), Tekkali (4) and Visakhapatnam (15). One passenger from Bhubaneswar got down at Visakhapatnam and five others disembarked in Vijayawada before the accident occurred. Rescue teams had difficulty removing the bodies as they were crushed between seats. It took over four hours to remove all the bodies as well as the injured from the bus.
Young techies see death and horrorOut of the 42 passengers, six were techies working in Hyderabad. K Bhargavi (22) was coming from Visakhapatnam for an interview at Tech Mahindra.She escaped with minor injuries.B Dinesh, an engineer from Vizag, who is aiming for a job in Hyderabad, said, “I saw mangled bodies on the bus. It was horrible.“ Other techies include D Sandeep and B Vasudev Rao, who are being treated at Vijayawada GGH; they saw death from close quarters.