At least 44 people were killed yesterday when their bus was engulfed in flames after crashing on a highway in southern India, police said.
The tragedy happened after the bus smashed into a central reservation on a highway between the cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad, piercing the fuel tank, local police spokesman Venkateshwarlu said.
“The number of dead, which includes children, is 44,” said Venkateshwarlu, who uses only one name.
Out of 49 people on the bus, five, including the driver and the bus cleaner, broke windows and escaped before the flames engulfed the vehicle, killing the rest, police said.
“The driver and the cleaner tried to run, but the police caught them and they are now in our custody for questioning,” said Venkateshwarlu, adding that the three other survivors had been admitted to a local hospital.
Media reports said that most of the passengers were asleep when the bus burst into flames about 140km from Hyderabad, leaving them no time to scramble to safety.
Many of the victims were charred beyond recognition.
About 140,000 people died in road accidents in India last year, according to the government’s National Crime Records Bureau, which works out at 15 an hour.
Bad roads, speeding vehicles and poor driving are among the contributing factors, while bus crashes with a double-digit death toll are far from rare.
In May, at least 33 people died when an overcrowded bus skidded off a road into a fast-flowing river in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. At least 30 were killed earlier this month in the northeastern state of Assam when a heavy goods truck careered onto the wrong side of the road and smashed head-on into two packed vehicles.
The WHO’s global status report on road safety found that 8 percent of India’s road user deaths were bus drivers or passengers, while 32 percent were riders of motorbikes or three-wheelers.
Meanwhile, a crude bomb exploded as people waited at a central bus stop in northeast India yesterday morning, killing two people a day after another blast at a market in the same city, police said.
No one has claimed responsibility for either attack in Manipur’s capital Imphal.
Authorities are searching for clues and suspects, but so far have no leads, police Superintendent Jayanta Singh said.
At least 17 separatist groups are active in Manipur and often stage hit-and-run attacks. The rebels claim the local population is ignored by the federal government in New Delhi. Most locals are ethnically closer to groups in Myanmar and China than to the rest of India.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese