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'We don't know where to go, what to do. Whether our kids are alive or dead.'

Is their child roaming the streets in bewilderment, dead or fighting for life?

Parents at the Bara Hindu Rao hospital in north Delhi had no way of knowing after a school bus carrying 120 schoolchildren fell into the Yamuna river early on Tuesday morning. For the hospital authorities just would not tell.

"We don't know where to go and what to do. Whether our kids are alive or dead. They (hospital authorities) say they have been discharged, but where did they go?" said one dazed parent, sorrow and anger battling for supremacy.

Parents, relatives, friends were all there, scouring through the incomplete lists of the dead, looking something they longed with all their hearts they would not find.

A number of ambulances, police jeeps and VVIP vehicles were plying the route between the Wazirabad Yamuna bridge and the Bara Hindu Rao hospital. And the parents watched and waited.

Seven hours after the mishap, the authorities did not have a complete list of the injured and dead children. And the hospital was clearly ill-equipped to cope with such a tragedy, as one hospital staffer admitted.

A despairing parent said he had had to run from one part of the hospital to the other for any information. But he still did not know his child's fate.

In the casualty ward, the situation was worse as parents collapsed on seeing the bodies of their lifeless children, wet and bedraggled, stretched on the gurneys.

Then a rumour spread that two children, who were alive, had mistakenly been sent to the mortuary. Sadness and frustration slowly congealed into anger and the students of the school waiting for news of their friends, demonstrated and shouted slogans against the hospital and police. The parents too reacted to what they saw as callousness, and joined the demonstration. Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and other officials later denied the rumour.

Students and parents were also critical of the school and the Delhi authorities for not stopping overcrowded school buses.

At the accident site, thousands of people had gathered, lining either side of the Yamuna embankment and the barrage, giving the police and rescue workers a tough time.

A constable of the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary, 41 Battalion, which has set up three camps on the Yamuna bank to protect the barrage, said he heard the loud sound of something crashing into the railing at around 0720 hours.

He came out to see the bus falling into the river. He said he rushed to close the gates of the barrage since the current was strong. He then called the local police, swimmers and fishermen from Wazirabad, villagers, anyone available.

By the time the police arrived at the site -- in about 20 minutes -- some 15 children and a school teacher had already been rescued. Locals said later many children were saved only due to the efforts of the Delhi police and the fire brigade.

It is not yet known exactly how many children died. The last figure available was 26. But for the parents of those who know where their children are, the hospital authorities might as well not take the trouble of putting it up after all.

RELATED REPORT:
26 kids killed as school bus plunges into river

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