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As many as 20 people are feared to have been charred to death when a private luxury sleeper bus caught fire after hitting a two-wheeler in Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Friday, October 24. However, of the 41 passengers on the bus, around 20 people managed to jump out of the bus minutes before the bus was completely gutted, leaving behind only the metal frame.
The Volvo A/C sleeper bus operated by V Kaveri Travels was going from Hyderabad to Bengaluru when it caught fire near Chinnatekuru village of Kurnool district around 3.30 am.
Most of the passengers were asleep at the time of the accident and woke up to panicked screams, fire, and dense smoke.
“I was sleeping when the fire started and spread within seconds. The emergency exit was struck. Some of us then broke the rear window of the bus and jumped out. The smoke was so dense that we couldn’t even see the people right in front of us. Those who managed to escape got out,” one passenger who survived with a head injury said.
She said within five minutes of her escape, the bus was completely gutted. “When I woke up, the front half of the bus was already on fire and there was dense smoke inside,” she added.
Among the victims is a family of four—Golla Ramesh (35), his wife Anusha (30), and their two children. Ramesh, a native of Nellore, had been working in Bengaluru for about 10 years according to his relatives. Showing a photograph of the family from just the previous day when they went on a boat ride in the Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad the previous day, his cousin said the family was unable to identify their bodies as they were charred beyond recognition.
A survivor who broke open one of the doors through which some of the passengers escaped, said he suffered a fracture from jumping out of the bus. Blaming the driver, he said, “The driver or the bus staff didn’t inform or alert us. They didn’t even open the door separating the passengers from the driver’s cabin. If they had, it might have helped some people escape from the front,” he said.
The passenger added that they struggled to break the window glasses. He questioned why the driver had fled after the accident.
The bus was carrying around 41 passengers including two children, and two drivers. Police said one of the bus drivers, who was a spare driver, was in their custody, while the main driver was yet to be found.
Dr Siri, Kurnool district Collector, said that 21 passengers had been traced and found safe. Of the remaining 20 passengers, 11 bodies were identified, she said. The death toll may go up as the remaining nine passengers were feared dead.
Another survivor named Akash told the media that he woke up on hearing a noise. “They stopped the bus saying it had hit a two-wheeler. I saw fire in the front part of the bus. The main door was already on fire. Three or four of us broke open the window next to the driver’s seat and got out. Some 10 people jumped out of the rear window.”
He said the bus was engulfed in flames within minutes and as it was an AC bus with fixed windows it was difficult to escape.
As many as 11 passengers were shifted to a government hospital, while three others were being treated at private hospitals.
The bus began its journey from Hyderabad around 10.30 pm, and when it was close to Kurnool on the National Highway 44 (NH-44), at around 3:30 am, a two-wheeler rammed into the bus. The motorbike got stuck under the belly of the bus and this is suspected to have caused the spark that ignited the horrific blaze.
By the time a fire engine rushed to the spot the bus was completely gutted.
With IANS inputs