45 Volvo bus passengers perish in fire near Hyderabad

Forty-five passengers were charred to death as a private luxury bus burst into flames after its fuel tank caught fire in Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh early Wednesday morning.

"Charred bodies of 45 persons have been retrieved from the bus," Deputy Inspector General (HyderabadRange) V Naveen Chand told PTI.

Fifty-two persons, including 50 passengers, were travelling in the Volvo bus when the mishap occurred. Initial reports had said that some software engineers were among the victims. 

The ill fated bus, registered in the name of JC Travels -- owned by the family of former minister J C Diwakar Reddy -- had left Bengaluru at around 11 pm. The Volvo bus met with the accident at Kothakota, about 150 km south of Hyderabad at around 5 am.

The bus hit a culvert and burst into flames, eyewitnesses said, adding that there was panic and scramble among the passengers to get out of the bus. But as the door separating the driver’s cabin from passengers' section was closed, the passengers could not come out and bus turned in to a death trap for the passengers.

They survivors include the bus driver and the cleaner, who were taken in to custody by the police for questioning. Five injured passengers were rushed to DRDL Apollo Hospital’s burns ward. They have been identified as Jogesh, Rajesh, Srikar, Mazhar Basha and Jai Singh.

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Mehbubnagar District Superintendent of Police Nagendar Kumar said that the accident occurred when the driver was overtaking another vehicle.

Every day hundreds of long-haul buses run amuck on National Highway 7 between Hyderabad and Bengaluru, covering almost 550 km in around 6 hours time.

The fire was so intense that only charred and melted steel skeleton of the bus was left as a gory reminder.

Most of the passengers were from Hyderabad and there was a big crowd of wailing relatives at the office of travel agencies anxious to know the fate of their near and dear ones.

Jabbar Travel Agency, one of the agencies through which bookings were made, said that 33 seats were booked online.

The air-conditioned luxury sleeper buses, operated by private operators on several lucrative routes especially between major cities, are notorious for their operating on speeds averaging 100 to 120 km per hour and have caused several deadly accidents in the past.

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The last major accident of this nature involved a luxury bus of Kaleshwari Travels operating between Hyderabad and Shirdi in June last year. Thirty lives were lost after the bus fell into a gorge in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra.

That incident had forced the transport department authorities in Andhra Pradesh to launch a drive against irregular and unauthorized private sector buses, some of whom were being run on the same registration number to avoid taxes.

But as the memories of the accident faded away from public mind, the authorities’ drive also petered out.

State Transport Minister Botsa Satyanarayana, who was in home town Vijayanagaram, threw his hand up in helplessness when he said that controlling the speed of the private buses was not in the government’s hands.

Indirectly he blamed the people for patronizing such travel operators by travelling in those buses.

“We have been urging people to avoid travelling by these over-speeding buses and travel by state road transport buses which are safe and run in a regulated manner. But people still prefer the private buses,” he said.

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Once private buses hit the recently-laid and expanded express highway between Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the speed rarely comes below 100. But as all bus windows are closed with curtains drawn and lights turned off, passengers asleep on the beds or reclining seats have little idea of the crazy speed.

“The new multi-lane highway has made this high speed possible. Otherwise, we used to cover the same distance in nine hours,” said one of the drivers regularly plying Volvo buses on this route.

If you happen to be on the highway in the wee hours near Hyderabad or Bengaluru, you will find almost a made race among the Volvo buses to reach their destination. They menacingly push other vehicles to the margins of the road and occasionally hitting them.

State Information Minister D K Aruna, who was on the scene of the accident along with the collector and other officials, said that the government will extend all possible help to the families of the victims.

But these words of comforts may have come a bit late in the day as the relatives of the victims wait for the identification of the bodies charred beyond recognition