News Analysis India

Tag: MP bus tragedy

  • ‘Dream turned into nightmare, woke up to see people writhing in pain’: MP bus crash survivor recalls tragedy

    By PTI

    REWA: Thirty-year-old labourer Subhash Choudhary was in deep slumber and dreaming about Diwali for which he was going home in Uttar Pradesh in a bus.

    But a loud thud broke his sleep and his dream soon turned into a nightmare as he saw people writhing in pain and lying in pools of blood around him.

    Choudhary was one of the passengers who was travelling in the sleeper bus that rammed into a trailer-truck from behind in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh late Friday night that left 15 persons dead and 40 injured.

    Although Choudhary survived the accident, he suffered injuries on his hand and legs.

    He was going to his hometown Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh from Hyderabad to celebrate Diwali with his loved ones.

    But the accident shattered his dream as he is now undergoing treatment in a hospital in Rewa.

    “I was fast asleep and celebrating Diwali in my dream as the festival of lights is just three days. I had gone to sleep after having dinner with fellow passengers. But I woke up to a loud thud. In a second or two, cries like ‘God save me, God help me’ resonated in our bus,” he said.

    “My dream soon turned into a nightmare and I literally felt stars were tumbling around me. I was writhing in pain and there were several others like me. I saw helpless people in pools of blood inside the bus.

    Some of them were not responding, while some others were gasping for breath,” he added.

    WATCH |

    Choudhary is currently being treated at the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Rewa.

    “Our dream to return home and celebrate the festival turned to ashes. I became numb,” he added.

    Madhya Pradesh | 14 dead, 40 injured in a collision between a bus and trolley near Suhagi Hills in Rewa. The bus was going from Hyderabad to Gorakhpur. All people on the bus are reportedly residents of Uttar Pradesh. pic.twitter.com/cwN2MUCB7O
    — ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) October 22, 2022
    Another survivor, Manish Sakat (21), also a resident of Maharajganj, sustained injury on his head and chest.

    Speaking in a feeble voice, he said the deafening sound of the bus crash and the cries soon afterwards left him terrified and compelled him to shut his eyes.

    “I was so frightened that I closed my eyes. After that I don’t know what happened. After some time, I regained my consciousness only to find myself in Sanjay Gandhi hospital,” he told PTI.

    Rewa Superintendent of Police Navneet Bhasin said 15 people were killed and 40 injured in the accident.

    “The victims were mostly labourers returning home to UP for Diwali. The bus was also from that state,” he said.

    The bodies of the driver and conductor were pulled out from the mangled front portion of the bus with the help of gas cutters, Bhasin said.

    “The ill-fated bus was negotiating a mountain road in Sohagi ghati, when it rammed into a trailer-truck from behind on national highway (NH)-30, about 60 km from the district headquarters,” he said.

    Process has been initiated to send those persons, who have suffered minor injuries, to Uttar Pradesh by making alternative travel arrangements for them, he said.

    “By evening, more than 25 will be sent to Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

    The death toll is unlikely to rise, the SP said.

    REWA: Thirty-year-old labourer Subhash Choudhary was in deep slumber and dreaming about Diwali for which he was going home in Uttar Pradesh in a bus.

    But a loud thud broke his sleep and his dream soon turned into a nightmare as he saw people writhing in pain and lying in pools of blood around him.

    Choudhary was one of the passengers who was travelling in the sleeper bus that rammed into a trailer-truck from behind in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh late Friday night that left 15 persons dead and 40 injured.

    Although Choudhary survived the accident, he suffered injuries on his hand and legs.

    He was going to his hometown Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh from Hyderabad to celebrate Diwali with his loved ones.

    But the accident shattered his dream as he is now undergoing treatment in a hospital in Rewa.

    “I was fast asleep and celebrating Diwali in my dream as the festival of lights is just three days. I had gone to sleep after having dinner with fellow passengers. But I woke up to a loud thud. In a second or two, cries like ‘God save me, God help me’ resonated in our bus,” he said.

    “My dream soon turned into a nightmare and I literally felt stars were tumbling around me. I was writhing in pain and there were several others like me. I saw helpless people in pools of blood inside the bus.

    Some of them were not responding, while some others were gasping for breath,” he added.

    WATCH |

    Choudhary is currently being treated at the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Rewa.

    “Our dream to return home and celebrate the festival turned to ashes. I became numb,” he added.

    Madhya Pradesh | 14 dead, 40 injured in a collision between a bus and trolley near Suhagi Hills in Rewa. The bus was going from Hyderabad to Gorakhpur. All people on the bus are reportedly residents of Uttar Pradesh. pic.twitter.com/cwN2MUCB7O
    — ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) October 22, 2022
    Another survivor, Manish Sakat (21), also a resident of Maharajganj, sustained injury on his head and chest.

    Speaking in a feeble voice, he said the deafening sound of the bus crash and the cries soon afterwards left him terrified and compelled him to shut his eyes.

    “I was so frightened that I closed my eyes. After that I don’t know what happened. After some time, I regained my consciousness only to find myself in Sanjay Gandhi hospital,” he told PTI.

    Rewa Superintendent of Police Navneet Bhasin said 15 people were killed and 40 injured in the accident.

    “The victims were mostly labourers returning home to UP for Diwali. The bus was also from that state,” he said.

    The bodies of the driver and conductor were pulled out from the mangled front portion of the bus with the help of gas cutters, Bhasin said.

    “The ill-fated bus was negotiating a mountain road in Sohagi ghati, when it rammed into a trailer-truck from behind on national highway (NH)-30, about 60 km from the district headquarters,” he said.

    Process has been initiated to send those persons, who have suffered minor injuries, to Uttar Pradesh by making alternative travel arrangements for them, he said.

    “By evening, more than 25 will be sent to Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

    The death toll is unlikely to rise, the SP said.

  • MP bus tragedy death toll rises to 54, five-day-long rescue operations end

    By PTI
    SIDHI: The death toll in the February 16 bus accident in Sidhi in Madhya Pradesh touched 54 after the body of the last missing person was retrieved from a canal on Saturday, leading to the search operation being called off, officials said.

    A bus carrying 61 people, including the driver, had plunged into the canal near Patna village, some 80 kilometres from the district headquarters, while coming from Satna.

    The body of Arvind Vishwakarma, the last person whose whereabouts were unknown post the mishap, was recovered from a spot in the canal that was 30 kilometres from the accident site, said Sidhi Collector Ravindra Kumar Sharma.

    “The spot is in neighbouring Rewa district. With this the five-day-long rescue operation has now been called off as all bodies have been fished out,” he said.

    The search operation was carried out on a 35-kilometre stretch of the canal, officials said.

    The bus, with a capacity of 32, was carrying 61 people, including the driver, when it plunged into the canal, leaving 54 dead, while seven survived.

  • MP canal tragedy kills multiple members of many families 

    By Express News Service
    BHOPAL: Tuesday’s bus tragedy in Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh has caused irreparable damage to at least five families by snatching away multiple members from their lives forever.

    While a young couple died along with their infant daughter, a young woman and her two-year-old son too lost their lives in the mishap. Another young woman on her way to appear for the ANM selection exam died with her brother in law, while a former Janpad Panchayat member and Congress leader was also killed along with her husband. The tragedy also claimed the lives of a senior Ayurveda doctor and his ANM aspirant daughter.

    A family in Kusumi town of Sidhi lost four members of their family in the killer mishap, including 30-year-old Vishwanath Yadav, his 28-year-old wife Rajkali Yadav, the couple’s 3-months-old daughter Namrata and Vishwanath’s younger cousin Pradip Yadav.

    “Since the COVID-19 lockdown, my brother Vishwanath Yadav, a guest teacher at a government school was sitting home sans any earnings. But his wife Rajkali was determined to improve the financial condition of the family by cracking the auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) recruitment exam for which they were on the way to Satna by the bus. Since they didn’t know much about the exam centre in Satna district, my cousin Pradip who was a college student,  also accompanied them,” said Vishwanath’s elder brother Jaganath Yadav, while taking home all four bodies for cremation.

    READ HERE | At least 45 dead after overcrowded bus plunges into canal in MP

    The accident claimed the lives of two members of another family of Sidhi district, including 25-year-old Kavita Yadav and her brother-in-law 22-year-old Kalyan Singh Yadav. A resident of Kathar Bodraha village in Gopadbanas block, Kavita left home with brother-in-law Kalyan early in the morning, asking other family members to tell her 3-year-old daughter Devanshi that she’ll be back in the evening after taking the recruitment test.

    “But she’ll never return now, her husband and my younger brother Jeevendra who works in a factory in Gujarat are returning to Sidhi after coming to know about the death. We don’t know how to tell three-year-old Devanshi about her mother’s death, who is repeatedly asking us when will her mother return,” Kavita’s elder brother-in-law Subedas Yadav said.

    The Saket family in Kukudijhar village of Sidhi district lost its head, 50-year-old government Ayurvedic doctor Ramsukh Saket and his eldest among the five daughters Amarjyoti Saket (22).

    In Ward No.7 locality of Rampur Naikin town of Sidhi district, a private coaching teacher lost wife Pinki Gupta (25) and two-year-old son Atharwa Gupta in the mishap, in which his father-in-law had a lucky escape. “My wife and child along with her father were on the way to parents’ place in Nagod (Satna). My son was retrieved dead from the bus, while my wife was alive when she was taken out of the bus by the rescue team, but died later at the hospital. Had the rescue work begun in time, she wouldn’t have died,” said an inconsolable Anil Kumar Gupta.

    The Tarka village in Bahri block of Sidhi district lost its former Janpad Panchayat member and Congress leader Sushila Prajapati (27) and her husband Pushpraj Prajapati (30) to the mishap. Sushila was on way to take the ANM exam like many others who died in the mishap.

    The couple has left behind two kids — two-year-old daughter Ruhi and five-year-old son Utkarsh, who are now the responsibility of Pushpraj’s elder brother Prithvi Raj Prajapati.

  • At least 45 dead after overcrowded bus plunges into canal in MP

    By Express News Service
    BHOPAL: A bus with more than 50 passengers on board plunged into a canal in Rampur Naikin area in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district early in the morning on Tuesday, killing 45 people. 

    While 37 bodies have been retrieved from the bus, seven more bodies were retrieved from the canal. One woman, who was rescued, died in the hospital. Six more people were rescued or swam to safety.

    Among the dead was a four-year-old child. Sixteen young women who died in the tragedy were heading to Satna district to appear in the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) exam.

    Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan postponed all major events in the state capital, including the virtual house warming of one lakh beneficiaries of the PM Housing Scheme in Bhopal (which was to be attended through video conferencing by Union home minister Amit Shah also) and the state cabinet meeting too was postponed. The CM, who reportedly also postponed the events for Wednesday also, including his Damoh district tour, announced Rs 5 lakh assistance to the kin of each of the deceased.

    A sum of Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia each to the kin of each of the deceased and Rs 50,000 for the injured has been announced out of the PM Relief Fund, official sources said.

    While maintaining that those found wanting in the mishap won’t be spared, the CM said two ministers, including cabinet minister Tulsi Silawat and minister of state Ram Khelawan Patel, have been sent to the accident site from Bhopal for taking stock of the situation at Ground Zero.

    The accident happened in Sarda Patna village at around 8 am, when the private bus with around 50 passengers plunged into the canal which draws water from the Bansagar Dam that supplies water to UP and Bihar.

    Bus took alternative route due to prolonged traffic jam on main route

    According to informed sources, the bus regularly travelled through the hilly Chhuiya Ghati highway main route connecting Sidhi and Satna districts. But owing to prolonged traffic jams on the Chhuiya Ghati hilly road for the last three-four days, the bus took an alternative route through Baghwar area and while going at high speed plunged into the canal from the bridge at around 8 am.

    While seven persons swam to safety with the help of villagers, others either remained stuck in the 32-seater bus or else went missing in the canal, which had a high water current.

    With the CM directing to stop the flow of water into the canal from Bansagar Dam (located in Shahdol district), the rescue operations which began at around 8.45 am, could gather momentum at around 9.30 am. SDRF and Home Guards teams were pressed into action from Sidhi and adjoining districts, a NDRF team from Varanasi (UP), which was already camping in MP’s Sidhi district too rushed to the spot and started rescue operations at around 9.30 am.

    With the NDRF team joining rescue operations, the bus was extracted at around 11.30 am from the canal, where the flow of water had toned down, due to stopping of water release from the dam.

    “Till 2 pm, as many as 37 bodies have been retrieved from the canal and the bus, while a search is underway for the other missing people, whose number isn’t known,” an NDRF source who is part of the rescue operations told The New Indian Express.

    According to official sources, the bus which had a capacity to carry 32-34 passengers had around 50 passengers on board. With 37 bodies already retrieved and seven persons swimming to safety, four to five persons could still be missing in the canal.

    According to MP transport minister Govind Singh Rajput, “I’m meeting the CM to brief him about the conditions on ground. The permit of the bus has been terminated, as it had taken an alternative route of seven km. The state’s transport commissioner has been tasked with conducting a thorough probe into the matter and the additional transport commissioner has been sent to the spot.”