It would take a few more days for the Telangana police to ascertain the precise reasons for the deadly road crash at Kondagattu in Jagtial district on Tuesday that has claimed 60 lives so far.
With multiple theories emerging from experts, eyewitnesses, injured persons and officials of departments concerned, the investigators could not arrive at any conclusion as to what led to the bus accident. Eyewitness Soya Vikram, who claims to have tried to caution the bus driver seconds before the crash, just might help the police in fixing responsibility.
Once a heavy vehicle driver, Vikram, who now operates a toy store on the ghat road of Kondagattu temple, says he heard a thud as the bus was slowly coming downwards on the road. “My driving experience hinted it was the sound of brake failure. I started running towards the bus, waving to the driver to take it to a side and ram into the roadside trees,” he narrated on Wednesday.
The bus’ speed was not more than 20 kmph to 30 kmph then. It perhaps took some time for the driver to realise that the brakes had failed, he feels. By then, the bus picked up speed and grazed past a Tata Ace vehicle coming upwards on the ghat road.
“Other passers-by and I could hear screams of the passengers. We ran after the bus as it moved past us and fell into the 20-feet gorge,” Vikram recalled.
Two drivers of an earth-moving machine working at a construction site at the spot were among the first to reach. “Somehow, I lost my mind and started recording visuals with my mobile phone only to be chided by the two drivers asking for help in rescuing the passengers,” he explained, showing the 30-second video clip he had recorded. The ghat road has a curve towards the left and a few yards down, the road is flatter.
The passengers could have been saved had the driver managed to swerve the steering wheel to left is what many others felt. The kith and kin of most victims contend the accident took place since the RTC officials started running the bus on the ghat road downwards from Kondagattu temple.
Road Safety Director General Krishna Prasad, who thoroughly examined the ghat road and the accident on Tuesday, observed that the new route the bus took was “shorter and steep”. With passengers double the bus seating capacity, it must have been difficult for the driver to manoeuvre the bus, he said.
Apparently, the crash barriers along the ghat road were not strong enough to withstand collision. The bus hit the crash barriers and fell into the gorge, the officer pointed out. However, investigators are probing all angles. They believe, based on inputs given by the injured and the villagers, that the driver known for his skill to secure best fuel efficiency put the gear in neutral position while coming down the ghat-road.
“Of course, this is one of the several surmises being made by us. This has to be established with technical evidence,” IGP Nagi Reddy told The Hindu .
