Tirupur: In a ghastly road accident, 21 persons were killed and around 20 injured when a container lorry carrying tiles collided with a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus on the Tiruppur-Avinashi six lane national highway at Avinashi in Tiruppur district, early today.
Police sources said the dead included three women.Several injured were stated to be very critical.
The KSRTC Volvo bus was proceeding to Thiruvananthapuram from Bengaluru, when the driver of the container lorry coming on the other side of the road jumped over the median and rammed into the bus at around 4.30 am.
The impact of the collision was such that the KSRTC bus was reduced to mangled heap and the Tamilnadu Fire and Rescue Services personnel struggled hard to rescue the injured people. The rescuers had used gas cutters to cut open the twisted metal of the bus to pull out the injured and bodies.
The injured were rushed to government hospitals.Preliminary reports said there were 48 passengers on the ill-fated bus.
District Collector Vijaya Karthikeyan and other higher officials visited the spot and inspected the rescue operations. The neighbouring Palakkad district officials were also informed about the accident.
Condoling the death of several people in the accident, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today directed two of his Ministerial colleagues to rush to the neighbouring state to coordinate relief operations.He also directed the Palakkad district Collector to take necessary steps to provide medical aid to the injured and bring back the bodies of those from Kerala, the ChiefMinister’s Office said.
Transport Minister A K Saseendran and Agriculture Minister V S Sunilkumar have been directed to rush to Tamilnadu to coordinate relief operations, the CMO said.It said it was in regular touch with Tirupur district administration and efforts were on to identify the bodies.