Bus full of schoolkids passed by just before building crumbled

Escaping disaster by a whisker, a school bus packed with students crossed the five-storey building moments before it collapsed on February 15 on Kasavanahalli Main Road.

"It was around 3.50 pm when the Ananda Shiksha Kendra school bus passed by that building. The next thing I heard was a huge cracking sound with full dust that engulfed the entire area," said Ashok Gowda, a vendor at a bakery close to the collapsed building.

After the building collapsed, another bus from BRS Global School stopped a little before the bakery even as the dust spread everywhere within no time, Gowda added.

The building had collapsed on the live power lines running on the side of the road, bringing down all the power lines with it. Another school, Acts of Hope, located just a stone's throwaway from the collapsed building, had closed for the day at 3 pm.

Many students, including a few physically challenged ones, were walking home during the time of the incident. The building had collapsed just  around that time, locals said. Initially, there was confusion with smoke and rubble everywhere.

The first responders at the site were a few college students living in the neighbourhood. They were Bharath, his brother Keerthan and their friend Pradeep, bakery vendor Ashok Gowda, along with six other friends, including a serviceman visiting his home on leave at 17th Cross in Kasavanahalli.

The 10 of them managed to pull at least five injured out of the rubble before even the police or emergency services personnel reached the spot. "We were searching for waving hands from inside the rubble and pulled out at least five including Ganesh, a carpenter living in an opposite building, and another victim (Ram Nivas) who had both his legs crushed," Bharath told DH. "We saw two men (Anwar and Shaikh Mohammad) who already had fatal injuries so we did not touch them and waited for the police and firemen."