TIRUVANNAMALAI: Nine persons were charred to death and 31 injured when a truck, suspected to be carrying smuggled PDS rice from Salem to Andhra Pradesh, collided with a bus.
The incident occurred at Mallavadi village near Tiruvannamalai during the wee hours of Wednesday. The bus was carrying around 40 passengers from Vellore to Cuddalore via Tiruvannamalai.
Police suspect that the accident could have taken place when the truck driver fell asleep and collided head on with the bus. Villagers near the accident spot said they heard a loud crash and cries for help at 5.30 am. In no time the bus burst into flames as the fuel tank of the bus was damaged on impact.
The villagers informed the police and rescue services and then attempted to rescue the victims. Fire tenders from Polur and Tiruvannamali brought the fire under control, but not before over 90 per cent of the bus was gutted.
Injured persons were taken to the Tiruvannamali Government Hospital.
The police identified the bodies of bus driver S Ravikumar (38), conductor S Mahadevan (38), truck driver Annamalai of Salem and passengers Geetha (45) of Santhavasal, Poonkodi (35) and Suresh (30) of Polur and Venkatesan of Bagayam while two male bodies remained unidentified. The bodies were handed over to the relatives of the deceased after postmortem.
Elumalai (28), of Kalasapakkam who was among the last few to board the bus, felt lucky to escape with a deep cut on his forehead as he was seated in the last row.
“I managed to get out through the rear exit along with a two-year-old child seated next to me,” he added. Doctors said that the rescued child Shyamla’s condition was critical.