An eyewitness said the small bus flew like a football on hit by a goods train at
Adyar level-crossing, near Mangalore on Sunday. Photo: H.S. Manjunath
A 60-year-old woman was killed, and five others,
including an eight-year-old child, were injured after a goods train
rammed their small bus at an unmanned level-crossing at Adyar on the
outskirts of the city on Sunday.
The Government
Railway Police have identified the deceased as Zulaika. Her relatives
Thahira (40), Noor (8), Hussain (25), Mumthaz (35) were injured. Driver
Harish (51) suffered minor injuries.
According to
Adyar resident Harish Kumar Shetty, the private bus was travelling from
National Highway 75 towards Neermarga, when it came across the unmanned
level crossing around noon. “Some people had shouted at the driver
telling him not to cross. He did not seem to have heard them,” he said.
Just
as the bus was crossing the tracks, a goods train coming from Mangalore
rammed the back of the bus. The collision was such that the bus spun,
and fell into a ditch. “It was kicked like a football,” said Mr. Shetty.
With hardly anyone nearby, it took an hour for the
few residents to pull out the passengers. “One mother was screaming
‘Save my daughter’. There were not many of us. It took us time. And, as
the goods train had stopped at the crossing itself, no car could come
for the rescue,” he said.
Mr. Shetty said the
60-year-old woman was the last to be pulled out. “Her thigh bone was
shattered, and with only a few of us there, it took us time to get her
out. Her face was turning blue, and she complained that her chest was
hurting. It was only after an hour of the incident that she was taken to
a hospital in a police jeep,” he said.
While the goods train moved out in an hour, train services on the tracks were stopped till around 5 p.m.
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