At least nine people were killed when a speeding truck crashed against a luxury sleeper bus causing it to catch fire Chitradurga district of Karnataka early on Thursday. The ‘Seabird’ bus, numbered KA-01
AE-5217, was traveling from Bengaluru to Gokarna and had departed for its destination on Wednesday night with 29 passengers and three staff members on board.
The bus was engulfed in flames under the impact of the collision and most of the deceased were burnt alive inside the vehicle, East Zone Inspector General of Police Ravikanthe Gowda told reporters.
The accident reportedly happened after the truck jumped a road divider and collided with the oncoming bus. The bus driver and cleaner escaped while the truck driver was among the dead.
The bus driver, Rafiq, told reporters that he tried to control his vehicle on seeing the speeding truck approaching from the opposite direction, but couldn’t.
“The truck came from the other side of the road divider and hit. It was speeding. I was maintaining the speed of 60-70 (km/hr) at that time. I saw the vehicle coming from the front. I know only the vehicle (truck) hitting the bus, after that I don’t know what happened and how I was brought out,” he said while undergoing treatment.
Condoling the deaths, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) to the deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured.
According to the Seabird Travels chart, following is the full list of passengers onboard at the time of the accident.
Seven passengers boarded the bus at Seabird Lounge in Gandhinagar at 8:25pm:
- Manjunath
- Sandhya H
- Shashank HV
- Dilip
- Prethiswaran
- Bindhu V
- Kavitha K
Three passengers boarded the bus at Anand Rao Circle. All of them had booked upper berths on the sleeper bus:
- Anirudh Banerjee
- Amruta
- Isha
The highest number of passengers boarded the bus at Majestic pickup point:
- Suraj
- Manasa
- Milana
- Hemraj Kumhar
- Kalpana Prajapati
- Shashikant M
- Vijay Bhandari
- Navya
- Abhishek
- Kiran Pal H
- Kirthan M
- Nanditha GB
- Devika H
Three more passengers got on at Yeshwanthpur near Govardhan Theatre:
- Megharaj
- Masratunnisa SN
- Syed Zameer Ghouse
The last set of passengers boarded the bus at Goraguntepalya:
- Gaganashree S
- Rashmi Mahale
- Rakshitha R
Most passengers had booked their tickets online. East Zone Inspector General of Police Ravikanthe Gowda said a DNA test would be performed to identify the dead bodies.
