Five passengers, including three children, were charred to death in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district after a Bengaluru-bound bus starting from Vijayapura caught fire in the wee hours of Wednesday. According to officials on the ground, the bus had a total of 32 passengers onboard, excluding the driver and the helper. Chitradurga Superintendent of Police G Radhika confirmed the incident and said that the identification of the deceased was yet to be done as the bodies had been completely charred.
“We are yet to ascertain why the fire broke out. We have given the vehicle to RTO (Regional Transport Office) and they will inspect and ascertain what caused the fire. We suspect that the engine may have overheated. The bus had started at 9 pm and the driver had only taken a break of 10 minutes until the mishap took place,” she told TNM.
Officials said that the mishap took place at KR Halli in Hiriyur taluk on National Highway 4. All the injured have been shifted to the nearby district government hospital. According to preliminary information, the bus was run by a private operator named ‘Kukke Sri Travels’.
According to fire and emergency services personnel, the fire had started due to a technical snag in the engine. However, official confirmation is awaited. The Hiriyur police have registered a case and a probe is underway.
This is not the first time that such an incident has come to light. Recently, 50 passengers had a close shave with death after the bus that they were travelling in, caught fire following a road accident in Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam district in January this year.
A private bus plying towards Bengaluru caught fire on NH4 at Tumakuru in September 2019. In that fire, which took place in Tumakuru district, as the bus was travelling towards Bengaluru from Yadgir, at least eight people were injured. A woman had suffered 50% burns due to the fire.
In another incident in June 2019, a private bus travelling to Bengaluru from Hyderabad caught fire at around 3.45 am in the morning. However, fortunately, there were no injuries reported in that incident as an alert crew evacuated the bus after spotting smoke emitting from the vehicle.
Moments later, the vehicle was gutted and the bus was charred, before the first fire engine arrived to tend to the fire.