Mishap in Erode district as driver loses control at a turn

ERODE: At least one person was killed on the spot and 73 others including several children were seriously injured when a state transport bus plying in the Kadambur hill sector turned turtle near Karalayam in Erode district on Monday. 

Police said due to the morning peak hour, the state transport bus was over-crowded, carrying about 90 passengers at the time of the gruesome mishap. The bus driver Prabhakaran, while negotiating a curve near Pasuvannapuram, apparently lost control of the vehicle and the bus flipped to its side on the hill road. 

One of the passengers 32-year-old Soundararajan, was crushed to death under the bus at the spot, even as 73 others who were critically injured were rushed to the Sathyamangalam government hospital, police said. 

Of them, 11 passengers including a 70-year-old lady, Kirisithammal and Kuppusamy, 45, were shifted to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital for intensive treatment. 

With few government buses plying on the hill route, morning trips are invariably over-crowded including children who have to get to their schools, sources said. Luckily a tree at the spot where the bus turned turtle had helped to contain the damage. Or else, the bus would have plunged down the steep hill and the human tragedy would have been unimaginably greater, an eyewitness said. 

Local villagers were shocked and dazed as they tried to help in pulling out the passengers from the ill-fated bus. The Kadambur police have registered a case and investigations are on.