The Hindu : Baby girl among 10 crushed to death

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 18, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Baby girl among 10 crushed to death

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA JAN. 17. Ten persons, including five women and a baby girl, were crushed to death and 47 suffered grievous injuries when a truck in which they were travelling plunged into the dried up portion of the Kagina river after hitting the cement slabs of a bridge on Shahabad-Wadi Road near Ravoor Cross, about 35 km. from here, on Thursday night.

While nine persons died on the spot, Tippavva Biradar (55) died on the way to the Government General Hospital in Gulbarga. Of the 47 injured, 33 were admitted to the Government General Hospital. The rest were treated as outpatients. Most of the injured suffered multiple fractures and head injuries. Some of them lost their limbs and the condition of a few injured persons is said to be serious.

The Superintendent of Police, Alok Kumar, who rushed to the spot with senior police officers, gave the names of the victims as Lakkappa Biradar (55), Maddappa Biradar, Amog Siddappa Biradar (13), Malappa Biradar, Mayavva Biradar, and Gangabai Biradar and her two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter. The identity of two women aged 45 and 50 was not known. A team of doctors from the Government Hospital here conducted the post-mortem on the riverbed.

All the victims hailed from Hachyal and Kannolli in Sindagi taluk of Bijapur District, and were going to Nagai Yellamma Temple in Chitapur taluk to participate in the annual fair on Friday. Shivappa and Hanumantappa, who survived the accident and identified most of the victims, told The Hindu that they boarded the ill-fated vehicle at Sindagi after travelling by a government bus from their villages.

Reckless driving

Police suspect that the driver of the vehicle, Dawood, was in an inebriated state. Some of the victims told police that Dawood was driving the vehicle recklessly, and they had even asked him to drive cautiously. The ill-fated truck crashed into the cement slabs on the right side of the bridge and fell into the dried up portion of the river.

Policemen from Shahabad town and rural police stations, who reached the spot 10 minutes after the accident, saved many lives by extricating the injured trapped below the vehicle. People from Shahabad and Ravoor villages helped in rescuing those caught below the truck.

Policemen used cranes from the ACC Factory and the local Fire Force office to lift the vehicle from the riverbed. The Deputy Commissioner, M. Lakshminarayan, visited the spot and supervised the rescue operations.

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