Six killed, 64 injured as buses collide near Vaniyambadi

VANIYAMBADI: Six persons including a woman were killed when a Chennai-bound air-conditioned SETC bus from Bengaluru collided head-on with an omnibus at Chettiyappanur near Vaniyambadi in Tirupattur district in the early hours on Saturday.

As many as 64 persons, who were injured in the accident, were rushed to the Vaniyambadi Government Hospital. Later 27 of them were referred to the Vellore Government Medical College Hospital for advanced treatment.

Sources said that the driver of the SETC bus lost control while trying to negotiate a sharp curve and the vehicle ran over the median and rammed the Bengaluru-bound omnibus coming from Chennai.

The deceased were identified as Elumalai (47), SETC driver from Ulundurpet, Syed Nadeem (47), omnibus driver from Kolar in Karnataka, Mohammed Fairoz (37) and Raja (30) of Vaniyambadi, Kirthiga (35) of Chennai, and Ajith Kumar (25) of Sriharipuram in AP’s Chittoor district.

While Nadeem died on the way to the Vellore hospital, others, including the SETC driver and four omnibus passengers, died on the spot. The bodies of the deceased were sent to Vaniyambadi Government Hospital for autopsy.

As the front portions of both the buses were severely damaged, fire and rescue service personnel had a tough time in extricating the injured stuck inside both the vehicles.

Vaniyambadi taluk police have registered a case and started investigations. Meanwhile, complaints of theft of valuables of passengers, including gold jewels worn by the victims by locals, surfaced immediately after the accident.

Vaniyambadi MLA G Senthil Kumar and Tirupattur SP Albert John visited the accident spot and later consoled the injured at the hospital. Tirupattur collector D Baskara Pandian, Vellore range DIG MS Muthusamy, MLAs A Nallathambi (Tirupattur), AS Vilvanathan (Ambur), and K Devaraji (Jolorpet) also inspected the spot.