Lucky escape for 50 as bus teeters on trees on highway

NAVI MUMBAI: Fifty people, including children, had a miraculous escape after a private bus they were travelling on veered off the road along the Old Mumbai-Pune highway near Khopoli on Thursday night. A brake failure led to the accident, the police quoted the driver as saying. Some of the passengers sustained minor injuries.

The bus, which had the name ‘Kulswami Travels’ emblazoned on its exterior walls, slipped onto a lower ground off the highway at Shingroba Chowk near Khopoli in Raigad and crashed into a row of trees lining the plain ground around 11.15 pm. Highway police officials said it this averted a disaster. “Had it not been for the trees, the bus would have slipped into a gorge, about 100 feet deep, that lies beyond those trees, said a police official.

The bus with 10 children, 20 women and and 20 men had started from Ahmednagar and was on its way towards Khopoli. The passengers on board, who are from the Marwadi community, were returning from a religious function held at Pathardi in Ahmednagar district. The mishap took place minutes before the bus was to reach its destination.

Constable Vijay Gurav of the state highway traffic police said that the bus driver claimed that “brake failure caused the bus to spin out of control”. Another police official said the mishap “could have proved tragic had it not been for the trees lining the Old Pune highway”. Locals helped extricate people who were trapped on board.