Toll could have been higher, say survivors
TOI : PUNE: It could have been a major tragedy but for a roadside tree that took the brunt of the bus hit before the vehicle rolled over slowly into the gorge, recalled victims of Friday’s accident at Katraj ghat.
While negotiating a sharp turn at Mangdewadi along the circuitous ghat, the driver lost control over the vehicle and the bus veered off the road and hit a tree, Umesh Barge, one of the injured passengers, told to TOI at a private hospital in Katraj.
Barge, who hails from Kolhapur, added: “The crash considerably reduced the momentum of the bus as it rolled down the gorge thereafter. There could have been more fatalities had it not been for the tree.”
Barge recalled: “I was awake when it all happened. On a sharp turn, the driver lost control and the bus hit a tree on the roadside. The tree got uprooted by the impact, but it managed to sustain the weight of the bus.”
Barge and his friend Yuvaraj Musale had boarded the bus from Kolhapur for attending an interview at an automobile company in Chinchwad.
According to Musale, the bus driver did not seem to be in total control of the vehicle as it approached the ghat in the wee hours. “The bus had left Kolhapur around midnight and had taken a halt near Satara around 3 am on Friday. We could not sleep thereafter because of the way the driver was driving the bus.”
Musale added: “Over an hour after the Satara halt, the bus moved through the tunnel leading to the Kartraj ghat. We could see the signs of an impending mishap. Much before the accident, the bus once scrapped a railing. We were about to tell the driver to slow down. But before we could reach him, the mishap happened. We could somehow manage to extricate ourselves from the bus.”
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