Kurnool Bus Fire Tragedy: Batteries Sparked Blaze, Smartphones Made It Worse, Reveals Probe; Driver & Assistant Taken Into Custody

Kurnool: A preliminary investigation has found that the explosion of two 12 KV batteries and a consignment of smartphones intensified the fire that engulfed a private sleeper bus in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district, that killed 20 people.

The bus, travelling from Hyderabad to Bengaluru, caught fire on Friday, October 24, after hitting a two-wheeler near the Nandanapalli area.

Here's what the probe revealed

According to forensic experts, sparks from a fuel leak at the front of the bus triggered the blaze after the bike got trapped beneath the vehicle. The subsequent explosion of the bus’s batteries and the lithium-ion batteries inside 234 smartphones being transported on board accelerated the spread of flames across the passenger cabin.

“The tank burst and fire erupted exactly at the main exit door. Behind it were two 12 KV batteries. These batteries exploded,” said Kurnool Range Deputy Inspector General of Police Koya Praveen, quoted by PTI. He added that there were two points of combustion, the two-wheeler’s fuel tank and its impact on the bus’s battery toolkit.

Fire officers said the bus’s aluminium flooring and metallic paint further fuelled the inferno, melting under intense heat and worsening the devastation.

Driver booked for negligence, DNA tests underway

There were 44 passengers on the bus, of whom 19 and the biker died in the incident. The driver, identified as Miriyala Lakshmaiah (42), escaped through the passenger door but was later detained. Kurnool Superintendent of Police Vikrant Patil said Lakshmaiah has been booked under sections 125(a) and 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for negligence and overspeeding.

Officials said the driver and his assistant, Siva Narayana, attempted to break window panes to help passengers escape before flames engulfed the vehicle. DNA profiling is being conducted to identify the charred bodies, and results are expected by Monday.

Forensic and fire department experts have submitted a joint report confirming that both the batteries and smartphones contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze.