Mangled remains of the bus in Sangrah. (Express photo by Pradeep Kumar)Seven students and a school bus driver were killed when the vehicle ferrying them to school fell into a gorge near Sangrah town in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district on Saturday, police said. Eleven other schoolchildren were also injured in the accident, they said.
The 25-seater bus, carrying 18 children – aged between 5 and 14 years – and the driver, was on its way to DAV School, Renuka, around 8am when the accident took place.
Three students, identified as Adarsh, 7, Kartik, 14, Samir, 5, and bus driver Ram Swaroop, 40, died on the spot, while Abhishek, 8, and his sister Sanjana, 7, was succumbed to injuries at YS Parmar Nahan Medical College. Seven-year-old Arushi succumbed to her injuries at PGIMER, Chandigarh, later in the evening.
Five other injured students, identified as Vaishnavi, 6, Rakshita, 10, Anjali, 9, Sandhya, 5, and Rajiv, 5, have been admitted to PGIMER and their condition stated to be critical. Four other injured – Aayush, Dhruv, Mannat and Sunder – have admitted at a hospital in Nahan.
Sirmaur police have registered a case of death due to negligent driving in the matter.
Station house officer of Sanrah police station, Sub-Inspector Virochan Negi, confirmed that 19 people, including 18 schoolchildren were on the bus, driven by Ram Swaroop, when it fell into the gorge. “It took us around two hours to pull out the victims from the gorge. Prima facie it does not seem that the school bus was hit by any other vehicle.”
