Moving double decker bus catches fire on Noida expressway, none hurt

As soon as smoke started filling the cabin, the bus driver parked the bus on the side of the expressway and evacuated around 60 passengers safely

A moving air-conditioned (AC) double-decker private bus, ferrying 60 passengers from Noida to Bihar, allegedly caught fire on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway on Wednesday afternoon, police said, adding that neither passengers nor the driver were injured as they managed to alight the bus quickly after noticing smoke in the cabin.

A screen grab from a video of the double-decker bus on fire on Noida-Greater Noida Expressway on Wednesday afternoon. (sourced)

The incident, however, threw traffic into a disarray on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway for around an hour, said police, adding that several onlookers also made videos of the burning bus and shared them on social media.

Assistant commissioner of police, Noida, Rajneesh Verma said, “On Wednesday around 3.15pm, a double-decker AC private bus was heading towards Siwan in Bihar via the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway from Sector 37, when a short-circuit inside the cabin of the bus near Sector 96 made the bus catch fire.”

“As soon as smoke started filling the cabin, the bus driver parked the bus on the side of the expressway and evacuated around 60 passengers safely,” said Verma, adding that the driver also alerted the police and fire services.

The entire bus and luggage of passengers were gutted, said police, who later got a crane to remove the bus from the expressway.

In a second similar incident, a moving bus ferrying 20 passengers caught fire on the Yamuna Expressway under the jurisdiction of the Knowledge Park police station on Wednesday night.

A senior police officer said, “On Wednesday night around 7pm, a private bus caught fire near Zero Point on the Yamuna Expressway. The bus was headed towards Darbhanga from Delhi when the incident took place. Firefighters extinguished the fire and no one was reported hurt.”

According to data provided by the fire department, “1161 fires took place between January 2023 to September 2023. The data showed that 1,514 fires were reported in 2022, 1,372 in 2021, 1,246 in 2020, 1,729 in 2019, and 2,070 in 2018.