Woman dead, 3 lose limbs as bus plunges into lake

MYSORE: A woman passenger died on the spot and 18 others suffered grievous injuries after a KSRTC bus they were travelling in plunged into a lake in Chamarajanagara, some 170 km from Bangalore, in the early hours of Friday.
The deceased is Nirmala, 57, of Mysore's Krishnamurthypuram. Her daughter Shwetha, 28, Raju, 40, of Heggadadevana Kote, and Hussain of Kerala lost their left hands in the accident.Nirmala's grandson Kishen and Prajwal suffered serious injuries and are being treated at private hospitals in Mysore. Eight of them are undergoing treatment at the Chamarajanagar government hospital.
Chamarajanagara district police chief P Rajendra Prasad told TOI the bus was heading from Kerala's Thrissur to Mysore. The accident occurred when the driver lost control over the vehicle while negotiating a curve near Bendrawadi lake, about 40km from Mysore. The passengers seated on the left side of the bus bore the brunt. The bus was carrying 43 passengers.
The Rajahamsa-class bus of the KSRTC had left Thrissur at 7.30 pm on Thursday and was cruising to Mysore via Palakkad and Coimbatore.
According to police, driver Ananda handed over the steering wheel to co-driver Basavaraj Talawar at the Chamarajanagara depot. Basavaraj told police that he failed to notice a speedbreaker along the lake stretch and suddenly applied the brakes, a rash decision that led to the accident.
Vacation ends in tragedy
A summer vacation of a Mysore family ended in tragedy in the early hours of Friday when their bus careened out of control and leaped into a lake near Chamarajanagara.
The family of Chandrashekar, a lift service engineer from Mysore, had visited his in-laws' house in Kerala last week. The tragedy struck them when they were returning home.
Chandrashekar lost his mother-in-law Nirmala, from Palakkad, in the accident and his wife Shwetha lost her left hand. Their seriously injured son Kishen, 3, is battling for life in a Mysore hospital. Chandrashekar and his father in-law Krishna Bhat, who were with them, escaped unhurt.
Shwetha, a lecturer at Jnanajyothi PU college, left for Palakkad on April 24 along with Kishen. Chandrashekar joined them two days later. After a weeklong stay in Kerala, the five-member family took a bus to Mysore around 9.30pm on Thursday.