Students injured as van plunges into canal

Thiruvananthapuram: As many as 13 school students met with an accident on Thursday after the school van in which they were travelling, strayed off the road and plunged into a canal that was almost six feet below near Kavunada, Chowara.
It was the school van of Pattom Thanu Pillai Memorial High School, Punnakulam that met with the accident. Besides the children, two adults were also involved in the accident. They were the driver of the bus, Vineeth, 34, and the ayah, Girija, 45. Except one child, who suffered a fracture on one arm, none of them suffered serious injuries in the accident, the police and school authorities said. The accident occurred around 8.15am when the bus was plying to pick up students.

The students injured in the accident are Mithun, 11, Mithul, 7, Ananthu, 10, Anjana, 8, Sajila, Bhadra, 8, Anjana, 8, Abhirami, 9, Theertha, 5, Mahadevan, 4, Ebin, 8, Mithun, 7, and Abin, 10. The motorists who passed by rushed to their rescue and took them to hospitals. While seven children were taken to SAT Hospital for Women and Children at Medical College, six others along with the driver and ayah were taken to a private hospital at Fort. It was Mithun, 11, who is a class seven student, who suffered a fracture on his right arm. He continues to be under treatment at the private hospital. All others were discharged from the hospitals after dressing up the wounds.

According to Aneesh B S, a teacher of the school, there were students from kindergarten to class VII inside the bus.. The school was located around three kilometres away from the accident spot, Aneesh said adding that the driver of the van was very experienced.

The police also said that the school van was moving very slowly when it plunged into the canal.

“It is suspected that a portion of the mud road caved under the tyre of the vehicle, towards the edge of the road, leading to the accident,” said Vizhinjam sub-inspector E Gopakumar. The bus toppled over while falling down the incline and landed on its roof. Since it was a small canal, there was not much water in it and hence a big tragedy was averted.

The SI also said that the portion of the road caved in because the earth was soft here owing to the continuous rains that lasted overnight in the region.

The police have shifted the school van to Vizhinjam police station. Motor vehicles department will be conducting a probe to check whether the vehicle was in good condition.

Even though the students escaped with minor injuries, the accident was reminiscent of some grave tragedies that happened in the past. In June this year, two toddlers and an ayah were killed in a similar accident after a playschool van plunged into a pond at Maradu in Ernakulam district. The capital city too had witnessed similar tragedies several years ago at Karikkakom and Channankara in which kids were killed after school vans plunged into Parvathy Puthanar river. After the Karikkakom tragedy, the district administration issued a set of safety regulations to be followed while transporting school students, which the government adopted and implemented across the state.

Man running parallel service without licence held: T he Karamana police arrested a man, who was operating his autorickshaw as a parallel service vehicle to transport school students,without a driver’s licence, on Thursday.

The police identified the accused as Nisar, a resident of Beemapalli. He was plying with six students of a private school near Karamana when he was caught during an inspection.

The police said that they conducted a random check following the school van accident at Kavunada in the morning.

Karamana SI R S Sreekanth. said that the school authorities were served a notice to check the details of all vehicles and their drivers that conducted service for transporting students. The driver was booked for driving without licence and for rash and negligent driving. Later he was let go on bail.