Seven killed, 33 injured in Ooty accident as TNSTC bus rolls down dangerous slopes

Ooty: Seven persons were killed and 33 injured, including the bus crew, as a state-owned TNSTC bus rolled down the dangerous slopes in Manthada area along the Ooty-Coimbatore NH on Thursday morning here.

The Coonoor bound TNSTC bus began its journey around 10.55 am from the central bus stand here.

While travelling along the Manthada slopes, barely 20 minutes after its departure from Ooty, the bus suddenly rolled down the slopes and perched on a vegetable field nearly 200 ft down the slopes in pouring rains.

Police, firemen and other disaster management teams rushed to the spot and began their operations to rescue passengers found thrown around along the slopes.

While four passengers died on the spot, two others died on way to the Government Headquarters Hospital in Ooty. One more died while being shifted to Coimbatore. The deceased were identified as Dharman (64) hailing from Belithala village near Ooty, Santhakumari (55), Nandhakumar (36) and Almas (29) from Ooty, Jayashree (45) from Bengaluru, Dinesh (30) from Coonoor, Prabhakaran (50) from Kolakambai. The bus crew, including driver Rajkumar (38) and conductor Prakash (35), sustained injuries. Apart from them, 12 women and 19 men were injured in the accident. While 19 of the injured, including 9 women have been shifted to Coimbatore for treatment, others are being treated here in Ooty.

Though the shell-shocked injured passengers bus were not in position to recollect what suddenly went wrong in the bus, a couple of them could tell that bus being steered fast could have slipped down the slopes when the driver tried to overtake a two-wheeler on the narrow road.

S. Suganya(22) hailing from Kandal area here who escaped with minor injuries said that it was a miraculous escape. She said she was in the last seat and could not observe what went wrong in the front. The cops here registered a case and investigating.