Two killed, over 20 injured in accident near Kumta
Kumta: Two people were killed on the spot, while over 20 others were injured in an accident near Ramleela Hospital in Kumta town outskirts on National Highway-66 on Saturday.
The deceased are Shashikala Harikantra (60), a resident of Hosakatta and Venkatesh Ganapthi Gunaga (40) from Gonehalli.
The injured are being treated at government and private hospitals at Kumta, Udupi and Manipal.
The condition of eight of them is stated to be critical, said the police.
The accident occurred around 5.30 pm when the bus was heading to Gokarna ferrying about 29 passengers who included school students.
A flat bed truck, loaded with a heavy steel part of a machine, was heading to Mangaluru. As the length of the steel structure was large, it was kept horizontally on the flat bed and a considerable portion of it was protruding outside.
“As the bus moved parallelly to the truck, suddenly a large material went crashing against a portion of bus from the driver’s seat. Within seconds, everything was over,” Savithri Naik, one of the passengers, who was seated opposite to the driver’s seat, told DH.
On being alerted, the police reached the spot and shifted victims to the hospitals with the help of local residents.
Many of them charged that negligence of the traffic police resulted in the accident.
“The police permitted movement of the truck despite lack of safety measures by the driver. The car in which we were travelling was damaged as the steel structure hit it. We survived a major accident,” Ramu Kenchan, a resident of Hiregutti said.
“The transport department disbursed a compensation of Rs 5,000 each to the 12 of the injured,” S G Biradar, Kumta depot manager, said.
The police detained the truck driver and booked him various provisions of the IPC sections.
