MAHABUBNAGAR: Alert villagers prevented a certain tragedy on Friday, safely rescuing as many as 30 schoolchildren who were trapped in their school bus after its engine stalled while crossing an inundated railway underpass.The bus was on its way to Bhashyam Techno School located on the outskirts of Mahabubnagar town after picking up students from Sugurugadda thanda, Ramachandrapuram and other villages when it reached the railway underpass being constructed underneath the railway line near the Manyamkonda railway station in Mahabubnagar rural mandal.
The driver of the bus did not expect the downpour of Thursday night to have inundated the underpass and failed to gauge the level of the water. The engine was submerged and it stalled. All this while, the water level kept rising, gushing from the holes in the retention walls of the underpass.
Seeing the water level rising, the schoolchildren started screaming in fear. They were heard by locals who sprung into action and formed a line leading to the bus. One person entered the bus and passed the children (mostly aged between 5 and 10), one by one, to the next person till all of them were safe.
The villagers then used a tractor to tow the bus out of the floodwater. The underpass is not meant to be inundated, but since it is still under construction, a water drainage system has not been installed. Hearing of the incident, Excise Minister V Srinivas Goud telephoned the chief engineer of railways to ensure flood water drainage works are completed.It may be recalled that two weeks ago, a similar incident occurred at a railway underpass in Merangapalli village of Mominpet mandal in Vikarabad district, when a bus ferrying a wedding party was stuck in the floodwater while crossing it during the night.