A 14-month-old baby boy was killed and 15 others injured when a Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) bus they were travelling in plunged into a canal at Nayakangudem in Kusumanchi mandal in the wee hours of Friday.
The incident occurred at around 3.30 a.m. near Nayakangudem on Suryapet-Khammam State highway when the bus carrying 32 passengers was on its way to Manuguru from Hyderabad.
The low water level in the irrigation canal of the Palair balancing reservoir under the Nagarjunasagar left bank canal system averted a major tragedy. The Manuguru-bound bus plunged into the canal after hitting the parapet wall of the bridge across the irrigation channel, considered an accident prone area. A boy sleeping in the lap of his mother drowned in the canal after being flung out of the bus, which landed upside down in the channel.
His mother and 14 other passengers, including the bus driver, escaped with multiple injuries. The police identified the deceased as Bhargav of Wyra. The driver reportedly told the police that he lost control of the bus due to mechanical failure of the vehicle’s steering tie rod. However, Vishnu, one of the injured passengers, blamed it on the driver for “negligent driving.” The Kusumanchi police shifted the injured passengers to the district headquarters hospital. The condition of four of the injured is stated to be serious.
