Fifty students and 10 teachers had a miraculous escape on Saturday when the BMTC bus they were travelling in was gutted near Channapatna on Bengaluru-Mysuru highway.
Police said the students and teachers, from BES School, Jalahalli, were heading towards Srirangapatna on an excursion. Their bus was among six BMTC buses the school had hired for the trip for 300 students. The mishap occurred around 10.30am when the vehicle passed Muddagere gate, past Channapatna, 65 km from Bengaluru.
“Driver Sudarshan slowed down when the drivers of other vehicles signalled to him that smoke was billowing from the radiator of his vehicle. When he opened the engine cover, he saw flames inside. He and the bus attendant tried to douse the fire with water, but it spread to other parts of the bus,” Shivappa, one of the teachers, told police.
Sudarshan said he stopped the vehicle when he smelt something burning. “But the smoke suddenly increased, as did the flames. I decided to shift the students to a safe place rather than continue to inspect the engine,” he told police. Two fire tenders doused the flames in 20 minutes. A KSRTC bus from the Channapatna depot took students and teachers on their onward journey, police said.
“Had the driver not slowed down, anything could have happened. Things could have been worse had the flames suddenly extended to the other parts of the bus. It would then have been difficult for us to move the children ,” police said.
