At least 40 persons suffered injuries, 12 of them seriously, when a private bus they were travelling in crashed into a metro girder placed in the centre of the North rail overbridge here on Saturday. The girder was kept at the spot so as to enable its lifting and placement on the metro viaduct.
Police said the accident took place around 9.15 a.m. when the bus, ‘Ceena’, plying on the Malayattur-Mattancherry route, attempted to overtake a KSRTC bus while descending the overbridge.
“The bus driver was trying to overtake other vehicles rashly and it suddenly swerved to the right and crashed into the girder while descending the north ROB’’, said K.S. Baby Vinod, Traffic Assistant Commissioner, Kochi.
The locals and the police rescued the passengers, a couple of whom were injured. No one was fatally hurt. The front portion of the bus was completely damaged in the impact and twisted seats and wreckage were spread out from the damaged portion, the official said.
Following the accident, the passengers were rushed to hospitals nearby and about 25 of them were discharged after first aid. Three persons, identified as Suresh, Silsila and Karmegham were admitted to the intensive care unit of a hospital. The other seriously injured included the bus driver, its conductor and a 38-year-old woman, who broke her ribs. An engineer and a migrant labourer engaged in the metro project also suffered injuries.
Meanwhile, traffic on the busy stretch remained disrupted for more than an hour until the bus was moved to the side of the road.
Preliminary investigations attributed the accident to brake failure. The police, however, lodged a case of rash and negligent driving against the bus driver, Shiju, 46, but is yet to record his statements.
According to traffic officials, the impact of the accident would have been greater had the driver turned the bus to the left side. “This would have caused the vehicle to fall onto the road underneath. Similarly, the number of injuries would have been higher had the bus completed the descent and hit the vehicles waiting down there’’, they said.
The damaged bus was toed away from the spot about an hour later and was shifted to the traffic station later in the evening.
