PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/New Tehri
Five persons died and 13 were injured when the bus bringing them back from Kunjapuri temple in Narendranagar, Tehri district, fell down the mountainside on Monday. The people in the ill-fated bus were part of a group of people from different States, which had travelled to Kunjapuri in two buses through Dayananda Ashram.
According to official sources, about 40 persons from different States had travelled to the temple in two buses. It is being stated that initially it appears as if the brakes in one of the buses- UK 14 PA 1769- failed when the driver was reversing the vehicle. The Tehri district magistrate Nitika Khandelwal said on receiving information about the mishap, the people in the bus were rescued by the authorities with the help of local residents. She said that the bus ran through the crash barrier, due to which it did not fall down deeper down the mountainside. While five casualties had been confirmed, seven seriously injured persons were referred to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh and five were being treated in Narendranagar. One person identified as Vinod Kumar Pandey who had sustained minor injury was discharged and sent back to Dayananda Ashram after primary treatment, according to the police.
Meanwhile chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has expressed grief at the mishap, stating that he is in regular contact with the local administration. Earlier, on receiving information about the accident, the Tehri district magistrate and senior superintendent of police Ayush Agrawal reached the site to check the rescue operation being conducted by State Disaster Response Force, police, Fire Services and the local residents. The senior officials also visited the hospital to check on the condition of the injured. According to official sources, a team from the Regional Transport Office in Dehradun will be reaching the accident site in an attempt to ascertain the exact cause of the mishap. Those who died in the mishap have been identified as Anita Chauhan from Delhi, Ashu Tyagi from Saharanpur (UP), Namita Prabodh Kale from Nagpur in Maharashtra, Anuja Venkataraman from Bengaluru and Parth Sarthi Joshi from Vadodara in Gujarat.
