Bus Catches Fire After Collision With Lorry In Karnataka; At Least 10 Dead

At least 10 have been killed in a road accident on National Highway 48 at Gorlathu Cross in Hiriyur taluk of Chitradurga district, following a lorry that collided with a sleeper bus on Thursday.

The private sleeper coach bus travelling from Bangalore to Shivamogga met with a catastrophic accident. A container lorry, reportedly driven recklessly, jumped the divider on National Highway 48 and collided head-on with the bus. The impact was so severe that the bus immediately caught fire, trapping passengers inside, according to the reports in the Kannada media.

Speaking to ANI, IGP Dr BR Ravikante Gowda said, "A seabird bus was going to Gokarna. A fuel tanker truck rammed the bus by jumping over the divider. As per preliminary investigation, eight people have died, a few escaped with injuries, and the container driver also died. In total, nine people have died.

One injured person has been referred to the Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru as their 20% body has been burnt. According to our information, there were 32 people on the bus, including the driver and the conductor. A school bus travelling from T Dasarahalli to Dandeli, travelling parallel, also collided with the burnt bus. Fortunately, nothing happened to the 48 students who were on that bus. That school bus driver is the eyewitness to the whole incident. We are also recording his statement... Further enquiry is on..."

Among the 32 passengers onboard, 15 were women and 14 men, most of them hailing from Gokarna, Kumta, and Shivamogga. Manjunath, Sandhya, Shashank, Dilip, Prethishwaran, V Bindu, K Kavitha, Anirudh Banerjee, Amrutha, Esha, Suraj, Manasa, Milana, Hemarajumar, Kalpana Prajapati, M Shashikant, Vijay Bhandari, Navya, Abhishek, H Kiran Paul, and M Keerthan were travelling in the bus, according to a report in TV9 Kannada.

Bus driver, conductor and a few others managed to escape by jumping out while the lorry driver, identified as Kuldeep, was killed in the accident. The accident caused a massive traffic jam stretching for kilometres up to Shira, with vehicles stranded for hours. SP Ranjith visited the site, and a formal complaint has been lodged at the Hiriyur Rural Police Station.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his condolences over the incident and announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the families of the deceased.

In a post shared by his office, he said, "Deeply saddened by the loss of lives due to a mishap in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka. Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones. May those injured recover at the earliest.

An ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh from PMNRF would be given to the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given Rs. 50,000."

It may be recalled that a similar incident in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool claimed 20 lives and left dozens injured in October.