Two including child dead as bus falls in ditch near Uttarakhand's Haridwar

Two persons died while more than a dozen people were injured when a roadways bus fell into a ditch near the Chandi Ghat bridge en route to Haridwar. Police, SDRF, firefighting teams swung into action and rescued some trapped passengers by breaking it open.

Haridwar (Uttarakhand): A major ghastly accident took place early in the morning on the day of Nirjala Ekadashi in Dharmanagari Haridwar. Two persons - a 10-month-old girl and bus conductor - died while more than a dozen people were injured, sources said. A State roadways bus, which was coming from Rupaidiha in Uttar Pradesh towards Haridwar in Uttarakhand, fell into a ditch near the Chandi Ghat bridge on the Haridwar-Najibabad national highway. About 34 passengers were travelling in the bus at the time of the mishap.

According to information, one person died on the spot in the accident, while more than a dozen people are said to be seriously injured. On receiving the information about the accident, the police and SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) team immediately rushed to the spot and rescued several people. Then the bus went out of control and fell down from the bridge of Chandi Ghat, sources said.

The rescue operation was still going on when the last reports came in. The injured were rushed to medical treatment and they are being treated in the nearest hospital. While giving information about this mishap, Haridwar CFO Abhinav Tyagi said that one person has died and many people have been injured when a roadways bus skidded off the road and fell into the ditch near Chandi Chowki Haridwar.

The police and the SDRF teams swung into action and took some victims out of the ditch. CFO Abhinav Tyagi and CO Jwalapur Niharika Semwal, SO Shyampur, SDRF team are also present on the occasion. The bus became a mangled body under the impact of the fall from a height. The rescue teams including firefighting personnel broke open the doors to bring out the trapped passengers.