42 engineering students stranded in Badami rescued

Forty-two students from an engineering college in Manipal were rescued from a bus stuck in floodwaters near Shivyogmandir in Badami taluk in the wee hours of Friday.

Avantika Sood, a BE Architect student, along with her classmates and two teachers had left Bengaluru for Badami in a luxury bus on Thursday night. The bus got stuck in the floodwaters of Malaprabha near Badami in the early hours of Friday.

The panic-stricken students sent an SOS to the college, which promptly shared it with the Bagalkot district administration.

The district administration, with the help of Hosuru villagers, rescued the students and brought them back to the village, which is about 7 km from the spot.

Doddaiah Bhusnoormath, former GP president, told DH, "We had received information from the SP office that a bus, in which a relative of a senior police officer is travelling, is stranded in floodwaters. We went there, rescued the students and brought them back to the village."

After the nightmarish experience, the students abandoned their plans to visit Badami and returned to Manipal via Manipal in a KSRTC bus.

Suhash Hatwar, a student and native of Mangaluru, shared his experience to DH. "We had left Manipal for Bengaluru two days back. On Thursday night we left for Badami. We were stranded in floodwaters and we had nowhere to go as it was dark. Villagers came to our rescue and took us to the village."