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Nine killed in road accidents in Kerala during New Year celebrations: Police
A student of the regional industrial training institute in Tirur (Malappuram) in Kerala died, and over 40 were injured when a tourist bus in which they were travelling met with an accident in the early hours of Sunday in Adimali in Idukki district, police said.
Nine people were killed in Kerala in different road accidents on New Year’s eve and the first day of the year, police said on Sunday.
A student of the regional industrial training institute in Tirur (Malappuram) in Kerala died, and over 40 were injured when a tourist bus in which they were travelling met with an accident in the early hours of Sunday in Adimali in Idukki district, police said.
Police said the accident occurred after the bus lost control after slipping away from the road due to heavy fog and fell into a 60-feet deep gorge. They said the timely intervention of locals and fire force personnel saved many lives. Among the injured, condition of ten students was serious, doctors said. Students were heading back to their homes after a three-day excursion to Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu) and Munnar when the mishap occurred.
Rescue officials said they were told about the missing student when all injured were rushed to the hospital, and they rushed back to the accident site and recovered the body of missing M Milhaj. When the bus turned turtle, he was trapped under the vehicle, and his body was removed only in the morning, police added.
“The government will ensure proper treatment to all injured students,” said state irrigation minister Roshy Augustine after meeting the injured. Students with serious injuries were later shifted to Kottayam medical college hospital.
Initial reports suggest the bus slipped from the road while negotiating a hairpin curve and fell into the gorge. Drivers of some of the passing vehicles immediately alerted locals and police, and a rescue operation was started immediately, braving thick fog and pitch darkness.
The motor vehicles department said the ill-fated bus flouted the ban on night driving. After the Palakkad mishap in October, in which nine school students died, the government banned night travel of school excursion teams. In hill station, Munnar, and surrounding areas, the temperature dipped below 1 deg C on New Year’s eve.
Meanwhile, in Thalavadi in the Alapuzha district, two young men were killed when a police jeep hit their bike in the early hours of Sunday. The jeep belonged to the deputy police superintendent of the Alapuzha crime records bureau. Police said the jeep was on its way to the police station after dropping the officer and the driver reportedly dozed off. After hitting the bike, the jeep crashed into the boundary wall of a house. The deceased have been identified as A Justine and Alex, both in their mid-twenties. The police driver was also injured in the mishap.
In other incidents, two people died in Thiruvalla in the Pathanamthitta district after a tanker lorry hit their bike. The tanker lorry driver told police that two came on the wrong side and hit the tanker. In Koyilandi in Kozhikode district, a private bus knocked down a pedestrian on Sunday and in Kakkodi in the same district, a youth died after his bike hit a car. Two other people were killed in different mishaps in Kollam and Kottayam districts, police said.
