Delhi-Varanasi sleeper bus, carrying 30-40 passengers, catches fire
A sleeper bus, carrying 30-40 passengers and travelling from Delhi to Varanasi, caught fire in Kanpur in a life-threatening incident. A sudden smoke blew as the bus caught fire, leaving the passengers fighting to save their lives.
A Delhi-Varanasi sleeper bus, which was carrying 30-40 passengers, caught fire, leaving a life-threatening and chaotic situation. The bus caught fire at the Ramdevi crossroad on NH19 in Kanpur as passengers ran to save their lives. While some passengers got injured, it is learnt that all the lives were saved.
As the bus kept going to its destination in Varanasi, a sudden smoke from the luggage kept in the upper deck stemmed the fire. The bus driver and conductor raised an alarm and tried to pull the bus to the side; however, the bus was under big fire by that time.
What possibly turned out to be the life-saving reason was that the fire first broke out in the heavy luggage loaded on the roof of the bus, which gave the passengers a few moments to react to save their lives, as many of them jumped out of the moving vehicle through windows and doors. Those who couldn’t gather the courage to jump, or were trapped in the upper berths, found themselves gasping for breath.
Traffic Police play its role in saving lives
Meanwhile the traffic police officers on duty at the Ramadevi intersection spotted the burning bus and rushed towards it. The officials entered the burning bus and pulled out the passengers. They carried about half a dozen trapped passengers in their arms to a safe location. Notably, local residents also helped in controlling the fire as they threw water bottles to mitigate the flames.
Passengers state bus was overloaded and feared for fire
Meanwhle, the passengers said the bus was loaded with far more luggage than permitted. Luggage, including plastic sacks, iron boxes, and even trunks, was kept on the roof.
One of the passenger said that he had warned about a possible fire due to the overload. “I had been warning them since 2 AM not to overload the bus like this. I said, if a fire breaks out, what will happen? No one listened. Now goods worth lakhs have burned,” the passenger said.
Another passenger said his bag, containing Rs 20,000 cash, clothes, and important documents, was burnt. A woman travelling to Mirzapur for a wedding burst into tears as she said her Laddu Gopal idol, a laptop, clothes and jewellery worth Rs 40,000 had all burned
CFO Deepak Sharma rushed fire tenders to spot; RTP, GST’s inaction under scanner
Meanwhile, the fire department acted quickly after receiving the information, and CFO Deepak Sharma immediately dispatched six fire tenders to the spot for rescue operations.
However, due to the traffic jam on the national highway, nearly half a dozen fire engines reached the spot after almost an hour of struggle to bring the fire under control. By then, the bus was badly burnt. The police team at the scene said that preliminary investigation suggested a short circuit was the main cause of the fire; however, dangerous goods and overloading caused the fire to spread rapidly.
Despite repeated complaints about overloading in travelling buses, the inaction of the RTO, GST, and police departments raises serious questions. Experts say that several travel agencies in Kanpur transport goods across states on a large scale while evading GST, causing major losses to government revenue. Yet, responsible officials sit in their offices and seem to wait for such tragedies to happen.
