‘Could come out of burning vehicle alive by breaking its window’

BULDHANA: One of the survivors of the ill-fated bus that caught fire and led to the death of 25 passengers in Maharashtra's Buldhana district on Saturday, said he and a few others managed to come out of the burning vehicle by breaking its rear window.

The accident took place on the Samruddhi Expressway near Sindkhedraja in Buldhana when the private passenger bus going from Nagpur to Pune rammed into a road divider around 1.30 am. Of the 33 passengers in the bus, 25 were charred to death, police said.

''A tyre of the bus burst and the vehicle caught fire immediately. The blaze spread in no time,'' the survivor said.

''The passenger seated next to me and I managed to escape by breaking the rear window,'' he said. The survivor said that after the accident, teams of police and fire brigade reached the site quickly. A local resident said four to five passengers managed to escape by breaking one window of the bus. ''But not everyone could do it,'' he said.

The people who could come out of the bus later told us that they sought help from other vehicles on the highway, but nobody stopped, he added.

''Many accidents take place on this route at Pimpalkhuta. We were called for help and when we went there, we saw the horrible situation. The tyres had fallen apart,'' the local resident said.

''People inside were trying to break the windows. We saw people getting burnt alive...The fire was so intense that we could not do anything. We were in tears...,'' he said.

Had the vehicles passing by the highway stopped for help, more lives could have been saved, he added.

Eight survivors of the bus tragedy have been rushed to a nearby hospital and are safe, police said.