New Delhi | At least 39 people were killed on Tuesday in the crash of a bus that plunged into a canal in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state, a local official said, after seven people managed to come out of the water while several were missing.
“The death toll in the bus crash rose to 39,” District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar Choudhary told reporters.
Sixteen women and a child are among the dead. Some of the passengers killed in the crash were on their way to a job exam to get jobs with Indian Railways.
Local officials said seven people, including the driver, managed to get out of the water and were safe. Several other people were still missing.
The accident happened when the bus, which was carrying more than 50 passengers, swerved on the road and then plunged into a canal near the village of Satna early Tuesday morning.
The state government ordered an investigation. The first findings suggest that the driver lost control of the bus which hit a bridge before crashing to the bottom of the canal, the press reported.
Local authorities halted the flow of water in the canal to facilitate rescue operations and allow two cranes to extract the bus, press reports said.
Footage from the scene showed teams wearing orange life jackets aboard rubber dinghies, searching for survivors.
“The bus was completely submerged and it took three hours to get it out of the water,” the daily reported. Times of India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office tweeted that the families of those killed in the crash would receive 200,000 rupees ($ 2,750) in compensation.
“The whole state stands alongside those affected” by this tragedy, declared Madhya Pradesh Prime Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a video message.
On Indian roads, poorly maintained cars and trucks often run at high speed and compete for poor roads with motorbikes, pedestrians and cyclists, making traffic very dangerous.
In 2019, more than 150,000 people were killed in some 500,000 crashes on Indian roads, or 410 deaths per day or 17 deaths per hour, according to government data.
According to the Times of India, the United States has nearly five times as many accidents as India each year, but the number of fatalities in India is four times higher.
The main causes are excessive speed, the absence of helmets for two wheels whose sales far exceed those of cars, and non-compliance with the wearing of seat belts.
In January, 15 people were crushed overnight by a truck in western India while sleeping by the side of the road. The truck had collided with a tractor carrying sugar cane just at a crossroads.
According to a recent statement by Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, the government hopes to halve the number of road fatalities and accidents by 2025.