‘Door could not be opened’: Survivors recall bus horror in Karnataka

At least six people died when a bus traveling from Bengaluru to Gokarna caught fire following a collision with a tanker truck. Survivors and eyewitnesses recounted chaotic scenes as passengers tried to escape the rapidly spreading flames

Chitradurga (Karnataka): “There was fire all around, and the door could not be opened,” a survivor of Thursday’s bus accident near here said, describing the moments after the vehicle caught fire following a collision.

Aditya recalled the scenes of panic as flames engulfed the vehicle and the doors could not be opened, following the collision that claimed at least six lives.

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The impact of the accident was such that I fell down, and within minutes, fire started spreading rapidly, with people screaming for help.

“We broke the glass and tried to escape. People were screaming at that time. Some tried to save others, but the fire was spreading rapidly, making rescue difficult,” Aditya, who survived the accident, told reporters here.

The bus with 32 occupants was on its way to Gokarna from Bengaluru and the tanker truck that was coming on the other side of the road jumped the median and rammed the bus.

A person claiming to be an eyewitness recalled on how the truck driver allegedly lost control and hit the bus.

“The truck driver lost control, probably because he was drowsy. Two buses were coming from the opposite direction. The truck has hit one bus (which caught fire), the other bus with school children immediately veered to the other side. If not, that bus also would have caught fire,” he said.

The eyewitness said the ill-fated bus caught fire because of diesel leakage from the tanker.”If there had been no leakage, there would not have been fire,” he said.

He recalled the ordeal of a woman trying to enter the burning bus to save her child, who was trapped inside.

“A couple that managed to got down from the bus was looking for their child inside. The mother was trying to enter the burning bus, shouting for the child. We stopped her and gave her some water. The child did not survive,” he added.

The driver of the bus carrying school children from Bengaluru to Dandeli, which was behind the ill-fated bus, said that the truck jumped the divider and came onto our side of the road. “The scene is still in my eyes,” he recalled.

“The truck directly hit the diesel tank of the Seabird bus. So I immediately slowed down my bus and veered to the left….that bus caught fire because of a diesel leak. On hearing people shouting, we tried to rescue as many people as possible,” he said.

The driver claimed, “I personally got seven people out and saved them. Then there was a kind of blast after which I could not go near… a mother was shouting for her child, but couldn’t do anything,” he said.

Driver of a lorry that was crossing the place at the time recalled how the bus was fully engulfed by the fire, with people shouting for help.

“The accident occurred at around 2:05 am, and we came here within a few minutes. Then, the bus was fully engulfed by the fire. We could not get closer to the bus due to the intensity of the fire. A woman and a man were crying for their child. Some other people were also shouting. The truck driver’s body was charred, and we pulled the body out,” he said.

Another eyewitness recounted scenes of passengers trapped inside the burning bus trying to jump in an attempt to save their lives.

“We saw some people jumping from the bus that had caught fire. Driver and cleaner survived….we tried to get people out, especially the child, but we couldn’t,” he added.