PUNE, January 29: Two persons were killed on the spot and 18 seriously injured when a Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) bus plunged into the Mula Mutha river, smashing through the concrete railings of the Bund Garden bridge linking Mahatma Gandhi Chowk with Parnakuti Chowk on Pune-Ahmednagar highway on Thursday evening.Preliminary investigations have indicated that the accident was a fallout of a technical snag in the bus, which was carrying about 35 passengers. However, Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Jha refused to comment on the reasons behind the accident. "We have instituted an inquiry into the matter. The reasons behind the accident can be ascertained only after speaking to the injured bus driver," was all Jha had to say when newspersons contacted him at the accident spot. Jha assured that the survivors of the deceased and the injured would compensated as per legal provisions. According to a passenger, Hanumant Gurav, "the driver told me that the accident took place after the steering rod of hisvehicle broke."
The identities of both the deceased, one of them a man aged between 25 and 30 years and the other a boy belonging of 10 to 12 years, could not be established till late evening.
The injured include bus driver Aba Piraji Shelke and conductor Someshwar Laxman Patole. While some of the injured have been admitted to Sassoon Hospital, others have been shifted to private hospitals. The bus (MH 12/QO 577), which was plying on route number 29, was heading towards the pilgrim centre of Alandi via Markal from Pune railway station when the incident took place around 5.45 pm. "So high was the speed of the vehicle that it crossed the over 10 feet empty space between two tracks of the bridge and ran into the concrete railings of the other track. Though the dash reduced the speed of the bus, it overturned due to the impact and nosedived into the river bed from a height of over 55 feet. All the passengers were trapped in the vehicle as the bus fell on its nose and its rear wheels rested on a stone wallbuilt to rest the bridge," an eye witness, Raju Shinde recalled.
"The water was only four to five feet deep at the spot where the bus fell. Or the fatalities would have been more," said a fireman involved in the rescue operations. Alarmed by the screams, PSI Sunil Tadge and constable Nandakumar Wakade and Sharad Shinde as well as some traffic policemen rushed to the spot and started rescue operations with the help of some youths from the nearby areas. They were soon joined by over 100 firemen of the Central Fire Brigade. The work of rescuing the trapped passengers was over by 6.30 p.m.
While the firemen rescued 13 passengers, the local youths and the police had pulled out 15 persons before they could reach there.
Some rescue workers, who swam to the spot, went inside the bus to help the passengers while the others pulled out the victims.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
