A disastrous road accident took place on the newly opened Samruddhi Express Highway last night when a private travel bus was ablaze. More than 25 passengers were charred to death while the bus was on its way from Nagpur to Pune.
Police said most of the passengers were sleeping at the time of the accident. The bus overturned on the side of the doors, blocking it, because of which nobody could get out, they said.
26 Passengers Charred To Death on Samruddhi Mahamarg Expressway:
- According to the police, the accident took place at 1:26 am between Dusarbid and Sinkedraja at Pimpalkhuta village which comes under Buldhana district. The bus was headed from Nagpur to Pune.
- A total of 33 passengers were travelling in the private travels bus run by Vidharbha Travels and at least 26 people succumbed to the accident including three children, while 7 survived and were rushed to the hospital. The survivors escaped the bus by breaking glass windows with their hands.
- The bus was running at a high speed and one of its tyres busted. The bus driver lost control and the bus collided with an iron pole and then rammed into a divider overturning to another lane of the road. Due to the impact, the front two tyres came out and the diesel tank or the diesel pipe supplying to the engine busted.
- As it was a sleeper bus and mattresses were made of cotton the bus quickly caught fire and passengers couldn't escape as the door was buried on the roadside making the only escape and exit impossible. While the eyewitnesses described that survivors escaped from the windows they were in no position to help but spectate people set ablaze and dying in the accident.
- While the bus driver survived, the other driver who was sleeping lost his life in the accident. The survivors said the bus was at high speed and will lodge a complaint against the driver as he was speeding, blaming him for the accident.
- Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde expressed his condolences and announced an ex gratia of 5 lakhs to the families of the victims while Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also offered his condolences and both the CM and Deputy CM are set to visit the site of the accident. While Narendra Modi offered the aid of Rs 2 lakh to CM Eknath Shinde for the ex gratia offered to the affected families and expressed his condolences. Amit Shah also offered his condolences.
- NCP leader Sharad Pawar asked the state government to provide the statistics of the accident and asked them to take immediate action on the speed limits of the private vehicles on the highway to curb the accidents happening on the highway.
The 701 km long Samruddhi Mahamarg is among the country's longest greenfield highways connecting the major cities of the state of Maharashtra the capital city Mumbai, and the vice-capital city Nagpur. The highway's first phase was opened from Nagpur to Shirdi on 11 December 2022 inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while Phase 2 of this Express Highway is set to open this December. This was one of the pivotal road projects of India but since the inauguration of the expressway, many incidents of accidents have been coming up to light.
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