An accident on the national highway connecting Bangalore and Chennai killed 10 persons, including three women and a child, at 2 am on Monday.
BANGALORE: An accident on the national highway connecting Bangalore and Chennai killed 10 persons, including three women and a child, at 2 am on Monday. As many as 25 persons were injured in the mishap.
The accident occurred in Mulbagilu near Hanumanahalli in Kolar district, about 90 km from Bangalore, after two Karnataka state RTC buses collided. Three of the 10 dead persons, including the driver of a Volvo bus involved in the accident, were residents of Bangalore.
The Volvo bus carrying 40 passengers was travelling from Bangalore to Chennai, while the other bus was coming to Bangalore from Tirupathi. Kolar police said the bus rammed into the right side of the Volvo, killing most of the people sitting on that side.
"The Volvo driver slowed down when he saw the speeding KSRTC bus come from the opposite direction; he even swerved to the extreme left to avoid a head-on collision. But the KSRTC driver drove right into the vehicle's side, killing the Volvo driver and eight other passengers," they said.
Though the other passengers in the KSRTC bus had a narrow escape, a 10-year-old girl died on the spot, they added.
The deceased have been identified as 38-year-old Pankaja (a polytechnic college teacher from Mysore; wife of Shivaraj), 42-year-old Nagaraj (a teacher from Holenarsipura, Hassan; son of Swamygowda), 10-year-old Rekha , (a native of Doddarajanur, Erode, Tamil Nadu; daughter of Bangaranayaka), 55-year-old Lakshmaiah (Volvo bus driver, a native of Tavarekere, Bangalore), 26-year-old Sachin Rao (L&T engineer, a native of Suratkal, Mangalore; son of Sadananda Rao), 28-year-old Vishnu Priya (a native of Chennai, resident of RT Nagar, Bangalore; wife of Dr Navin Kumar), 23-year-old Jaganath Sai (software engineer, a native of Chennai; son of Janumaja Sai), 23-year-old Asha Ojar (software engineer, a native of Tumkur town; daughter of D P Ojar), 28-year-old Amit Kumar Sinha (software engineer, a native of Ashoknagar, Chennai; son of Ajay Kumar Sinha) and 23-year-old Balaji (a resident of Mahadevapura, Bangalore; son of Prabhakar Shastry).
As many as 25 seriously-injured passengers were admitted to the R L Jalappa Medical College Hospital in Kolar while some others underwent treatment at hospitals in Bangalore. While some of the patients lost their limbs to the accident, others suffered limb fractures.
"Since it was Monday morning, the KSRTC bus was overloaded with people returning from Tirupathi. KSRTC bus driver Nagaraj, who lost his right hand, has been admitted to the Jalappa Hospital,'' said Surya Prakash, Sub-Inspector, Mulabagilu.
Ten-year-old Rekha was returning to her house in Chamrajnagar after visiting Tirupathi with her parents, sister and five other relatives. "The girl was sitting on her mother's lap and swinging on the bus railing before the mishap occurred. The impact of the collision threw her across the bus, into the driver's cabin,'' a police official said.
Rekha's sister suffered a fracture while her mother injured her eye. "Her father, however, escaped with minor injuries," he added.
Accident-prone highway
The ongoing construction work on the Bangalore-Chennai highway, an extension of the NH-4, makes it especially accident-prone. "Road widening and lane construction work is being carried out on the NH-4, making vehicular movement difficult.
The two-lane highway is being modified into a six-lane one. The road has been dug on both sides, narrowing its width. Several accidents have occurred due to this. On an average, 15-20 accidents are reported every month on that stretch,'' said K Puttaswamy, Kolar Superintendent of Police.
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