Five killed as bus veers off highway

A road accident near Itagatti village on the Hubli-Dharwad by-pass near Dharwad on Friday morning claimed five lives and left 28 people seriously injured.

According the police, the accident occurred around 5 am when the driver of a National Travels Volvo bus attempted to overtake a truck and went off the road. The bus then rolled down a 20-foot-high embankment and onto vacant land. “Negligent and rash driving by the private bus driver led to this mishap,” police said.

The dead have been identified as Vijaybahadur Devanarayan Maurya (50) of Haryana, Manoranjan Nanda (35) of Uttar Pradesh, and Gopinath Mufa (40) of Andhra Pradesh. The identity of the other two, one of whom is a woman, is still unknown.

The injured were rushed to the Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) in Hubli. “The condition of three people is critical,” police said. Three children who were also in the bus, however, had a miraculous escape, police added.

The bus, which was completely smashed, presented a challenge for police involved in the rescue operation. “It took almost two hours to complete the rescue and to shift the injured to KIMS,” police said. “A crane was pressed into service to lift the bus as it had fallen onto its side after rolling down the hill.”

The bus had been travelling from Mumbai to Chennai. Both the driver and the cleaner fled the scene soon after the accident.

A case has been registered at Dharwad Rural police station.