Around 10 this morning a bus travelingwith around 40 passengers fell into the Narmada river in Khalghat in the Dhar districtof Madhya Pradesh. As per the officials, 13 dead bodies have been recovered byfar, whereas rescue operations for the rest are still on, As per the information from thesources on the site, the bus fell into the river while overtaking, the driverlost control and the bus hit the railings of the pool. The site of the accidentis around 90 KMs away from Indore.
The Home Minister of the state NarottamMishra has issued two statements on the accident. Earlier he said that 15 passengershas been safely rescued. However, this was in total contradiction to the ambulancedriver on the site, he informed the press that no passenger is alive. Two hourslater the Minister said, only 14-15 passengers were on board and we couldn’t savethe lives of any of them. The total number of passengers traveling on the busis yet to be confirmed by the local administration.
Local in the rescue:
As soon as the locals got to know aboutthe accident, soon many among them jumped into action for the rescue. The photosand videos surfaced locals can be seen involved in the rescue on their boats. TheNDRF team soon reached the spot from Indore and swung into action.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thestate’s Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan later in the day mourned over theloss of innocent lives and announced their share of compensation separately.The PM announced to give Rs 2 Lakh each to the family members of those who diedand 50,000 to those injured. CM of Madhya Pradesh also announced Rs 4 Lakh eachto the family of the dead.
The bus belonged to Maharashtra Roadways, CM ofMaharashtra was informed about the incident by his fellow counterpart of MP. A total of 11 bodies have been identifiedby the time this is written. Three are from Rajasthan, one from Indore (MP), andthe rest from Maharashtra. The dead bodies have been kept in the DhamnodGovernment Hospital in Dhar, MP.
The accident took place on theAgra-Mumbai Highway. This road connects Indore with Maharashtra. The ‘SanjaySetu’ pool from where the bus fell into the river is made on the border of twodistricts of MP, Dhar, and Khargone. The Collector and SP from Khargone werealso on the spot. While the rescue is still on, theambulance driver Srikrishna Verma informed that as soon as he got theinformation from the control room in under three minutes he reached the spotwho was on the duty then. The rescue operation started without any delay one hasbeen rescued alive until now. The bus has been taken out from the river.
CM of Madhya Pradesh issued a statement aboutthe case:
CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan issued thestatement in the case and said it is unfortunate that we couldn’t save any lives.He informed that all the concerned authorities are in action to rescue as manylives as possible, Collector, SP, teams from the SDRF, and NDRF are on theground and putting all possible efforts. Every single detail will be updated inthe given time.
“It is very saddening to inform you that we couldn’t save anylife”, CM further added. The Naib-Tehsildar of Amalner PankajKumar Jat has informed the media that, “no one as of now has come forward toclaim the bodies. We are continuously in touch with the officials from Dhar andKhargone whilst the identification of the remaining bodies is still on.”