A luxury bus passing through the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway met an accident and caught fire immediately, the survivors share their escape stories and how fast the fire spread inside the bus leaving 25 passengers to burn to death.
Reports say that the private sleeper coach bus was travelling from Nagpur to Pune and met with an accident at Pimpalkhuta village near Sindkhedraja on the Samruddhi Expressway when it rammed into a road divider around 1.30 am on Saturday.
Eight others, including the bus driver and its cleaner, survived, reportedly. After hitting the divider, the bus overturned and fell on its right side with the entry/exit door facing the sky.
A survivor told PTI, "A tyre of the bus burst and the vehicle caught fire immediately. The blaze spread in no time."
Ayush Ghatge, a passenger who boarded the bus from Butibori in Nagpur spoke about somehow breaking the window and escaping the burning vehicle and crawling out of it. He told the media, "I was on the last seat and sleeping when the accident took place. I woke up when a few people fell on me after the accident. I immediately stood up and started looking for a window to come out. I started breaking a window and three of us came out with each other’s help."
Another survivor spoke to the media saying that the bus hit a divider and overturned on one side. Reportedly a tyre of the bus busted and caught fire and the blaze spread immediately. Speaking of his escape, the survivor said, "The passenger sitting next to me and I managed to escape by breaking the rear window."
A local resident said four to five passengers managed to escape by breaking one window of the bus. He reportedly said, "But not everyone could do it."
According to him the passengers who were able to escape did not receive help from other vehicles on the highway as nobody stopped for them. He also said, "Many accidents take place on this highway at Pimpalkhuta. We were called for help and when we went there, we saw the horrible situation...The tyres had fallen apart."
According to the reports, there was also three members of a family that died in the accident, identified as Kailash Gangawane, his wife Kanchan Ganagawane and their daughter Rutuja Ganagawane who were returning from a law school in Nagpur where their son got his admission. A relative of their family informed the media about their details and said, "The four had gone to Nagpur on Wednesday. We came to know about the accident at 5:30am. One of our relatives, who is a policeman, informed me that the charred bodies of the three were found embracing each other."
