A new wave of grief has enveloped the countryside around Maharashtra, with a road accident Wednesday morning that swept across the countryside of the state’s Amravati district. A Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus crashed into an auto-rickshaw on the Warud-Rajura Bazaar road killing four people, including young schoolchildren.
A major safety crisis for student travel in rural areas – the state-owned transport vehicles are being speed regulated – and the incident caught in the early hours of the morning rush hour only raised that same level of concern once again.
The Warud Tragedy: A Landscape of Destruction
Reports from local police indicated that the auto-rickshaw was transporting school kids, along with some towners from the rural interior of Warud Taluka. There are reports that the rickshaw was packed with passengers when a speeding MSRTC bus from the road ahead hit the rickshaw.
The collision involved enough damage to leave the auto-rickshaw reduced to a mangled pile of metal, with some bits of the vehicle strewn across the roads. Witnesses scrambled to the scene as calls for help erupted. Four passengers in the rickshaw made up of students and residents fell victim at the crash site before medical assistance could help.
Three other passengers sustained serious injuries in the crash. Upon receiving preliminary treatment at a local hospital, they were taken to a medical facility in Nagpur, for advanced treatment. The local police have cordoned the area off and are asking whether it was an accident caused by driver negligence or by a malfunction on the part of the vehicle.
Narrow Escape in Yavatmal: Driver's Heroic Maneuver
A similar incident occurred immediately in the neighboring Yavatmal district where an emergency almost turned fatal at the Arni Bus Stand. An MSRTC bus from Yavatmal towards Pusad had a total brake failure as it entered the crowded bus station where it was expected to drop off passengers.
The driver then had a moment's awareness that the vehicle had lost all stopping power and was steering for a crowd of commuters he was having an impressive presence of mind. In order to avoid being hit by pedestrians, he deliberately forced the bus to hit a stationary concrete pillar of the bus station. Although the collision damaged the bus cabin majorly and caused panic among the people in the bus, none of the people on board were involved in this crash fatalities or serious injury.
People hailed the driver’s split-second decision for averting a mass-casualty accident at the overcrowded terminal. Safety Concerns Mount. These twin incidents have brought the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation under the scrutiny of the public. Although the Yavatmal accident was clearly a technical failure, the Amravati tragedy has sparked anger among locals who say that the state buses often overspeed on narrow rural roads.
The Amravati district administration has also sworn to engage in a comprehensive investigation into the crash, and transport department officials are to do a safety audit of buses running at the Yavatmal division, determining what caused the brake system to break when traveling in a passenger bearing vehicle.
