Bengal bus tragedy: 6 more bodies found, death toll rises to 42
Kolkata, Jan 30 (IBNS): The official death count for the Bengal bus mishap climbed to 42 so far as six more bodies were recovered from the crash site on Tuesday morning, reports said.
On Monday morning, a speeding bus, which was going to Malda from Karimpur in Nadia district, lost its control and fell into a deep canal at Balir Ghat area under Daulatabad Police Station limits in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.
"A North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC) bus (WB 63 A 3214) with at least 56 people on board fell into Bhairabi canal after crashing into Nalini Baske bridge's guard wall at around 6:50 am," a local police official told IBNS.
Local people, who rushed to the scene immediately after the accident, rescued about 20 people from the canal.
After being rescued, the injured passengers were taken to a local hospital where five of them, including a child and two women, were declared dead.
As many as 13 injured passengers are being treated at Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital in Behrampur.
Later, the local police, fire and emergency services officials, Disaster Management Group (DMG) personnel, rescue workers and trained divers from National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) responded to the incident and recovered 31 more bodies from the bus on Monday late evening.
"Taking help of four hydraulic cranes, we recovered the bus from water and found 31 bodies inside it," a senior official of Murshidabad district police told IBNS.
NDRF and state DMG recommenced underwater search operation on Tuesday morning and recovered 6 more bodies from the canal.
A NDRF official told IBNS that their search and rescue operation is still on at the scene.
"Due to low lights and poor visibility, we had to pause our search operation yesterday night and we have resumed it again today morning," the NDRF official said.
"We've recovered 6 bodies from the canal since morning and our underwater search operation is still on as there is a report that five more persons are still untraceable," the officer added.
A source in Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital confirmed that at least 35 bodies have been identified so far and handed over to the families.
However, the state government has announced a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh each to the deceased's families, Rs. 1 lakh to seriously injured and Rs. 50,000 to the injured persons.
Earlier on Monday late afternoon, state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited the crash site.
"Very unfortunate incident, government is with the victims' families. We will take all adequate steps to support the families of deceased and injured," Mamata Banerjee said.
The exact reason behind the accident is yet to be established while eyewitnesses are alleging that bus's driver was talking on mobile phone while driving the vehicle at a high speed.
Describing the incident, a survivor of the deadly mishap told IBNS, "Holding a cell phone in his right hand, the driver was driving the bus at a very high speed and he was using his left hand only to control the steering and gear."
"He was desperately trying to overtake another vehicle on the bridge and lost its control suddenly. After crashing into bridge's guard wall, our bus jumped into deep Bhairabi canal," the 50-year-old man said.
"I was siting beside the driver and somehow managed to get out of the bus after it fell into the canal. I tried my best to swim up that time and a local boatman rescued me and took me to the hospital," the man added.
State Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari claimed that poor visibility due to fog was responsible for the crash.
"We will investigate into the cause of the accident. We have inputs that the mishap took place due to poor visibility in the foggy morning," Adhikari told IBNS.
The driver and conductor of the bus, Sintu Sheikh and Mintu Sheikh respectively, were among the 42 dead, according to reports.
Taking lesson from the incident, another Bengal government- undertaken transport corporation, South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC), is going to ban use of cell phones for its drivers while driving buses.
"Besides banning mobile phone use for all our drivers on duty, we are going to take several other preventive steps to increase passengers' safety and to decrease the risk of accidents," an official of SBSTC told IBNS.
"In our board meeting on Feb 3, we will finalize our preventive actions and then will announce those officially," the officer added.
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
