E-Paper
Bus with migrant workers plunges into ditch in Odisha, 3 seriously injured
This is the 13th road accident in Odisha involving migrant workers returning home since May 1 when lockdown conditions were eased for inter-state travel.
Three people including a driver were critically injured when a bus carrying 38 migrant workers from Kerala to West Bengal veered off just ahead of a bridge and plunged into a ditch on National Highway16 in Odisha’s Balasore district Saturday morning, police said.
“The bus overturned at Mangalpur-Nuagaon area of Balasore district when the driver lost control over the vehicle. Other than the three who were seriously injured, the rest of the passengers escaped with minor injuries. All the injured were rushed to Balasore district headquarters hospital,” a police official said.
This is the 13th road accident in Odisha involving migrant workers returning home since May 1 when lockdown conditions were eased for inter-state travel. So far five persons have been killed in these road mishaps. Though migrants have started arriving by Shramik Special trains, many are still arriving by trucks and buses because they are unable to get seats in the trains.
Two migrant workers returning from Surat were the first casualties when they were flung off a bus in Kandhamal on May 2.
On May 5, one person was killed and 10 others were injured when a bus carrying 40 Odia migrants crashed on National Highway 16 near Khurda.
On May 20, two migrant workers died and over 20 were injured in four separate road accidents in Odisha while on May 14, 12 migrant workers were injured, two of them seriously when the minibus carrying them from Andhra Pradesh crashed into a tree.
A bus carrying 47 migrant labourers from Bhubaneswar to Ganjam collided head-on with a truck in Baliguda area Kandhamal leading to injury to the drivers of both the vehicles and a passenger on May 26.
The 47 migrants had come from Goa by a Shramik Special train and were being sent to Ganjam. On the same day, a bus carrying 21 Odia migrants was involved in an accident at Laxman Nath toll gate on Bengal-Odisha border.
