COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Only 11 of 24 bus accident victims identified

Kushal Dasgupta in Baharampur

Relatives wailed inconsolably at the Baharampur police hospital as they went around looking at the rows of bloated bodies recovered from the River Bhagirathi, trying to identify their kin.

The pre-dawn bus accident yesterday had killed at least 24 persons, most of them in the 25-35 age group.

Only 11 of the 24 bodies recovered have been identified and handed over to relatives so far. More relatives were arriving on hearing of the disaster.

"How shall I live without them? It's all over. I have lost everything," sobbed Amiyangshu Ghosh, who lost his entire family -- son, daughter and wife.

Ghosh, a North Bengal State Transport Corporation employee, was awaiting their return from a wedding in Calcutta when he heard the shocking news.

The ill-fated NBSTC bus was on its way to Malda when it crashed through the guard rails on the bridge across the Bhagirathi on National Highway 34.

According to the passenger list, the bus carried only 24 people, Additional Superintendent of Police Sanjay Singh said. Going by that list, all the bodies have been recovered, but some 30 divers are still searching the waters for some passengers may have boarded the bus on the way, Singh said.

Since bodies may have drifted downstream, the district authorities in neighbouring Nadia have also been alerted.

The search will be called off if no more bodies are recovered today.

An operation is also on to salvage the bus from the river, but divers were reporting difficulty in reaching it some 30 feet underwater. They said their equipment was being "disfigured" by the strong current.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report