It was a horror Thursday in Tamil Nadu after 28 people died in three separate mishaps.
Twenty passengers perished on the spot when a Kochi-bound Kerala State Road Transport (KSRTC) bus collided with a container lorry in Avinashi town, a few kilometres from the textile city of Tirupur near Coimbatore in the wee hours of Thursday.
Another 23 were injured in the incident that happened around 3:00 am. The condition of some of the injured was reported to be critical.
The bus was plying 48 passengers.
According to preliminary reports, the tyres of the container lorry carrying tiles burst, lost control and hit a divider before ramming into the right side of the bus. The Ernakulam-registered container was reportedly speeding. The driver of the container fled from the spot.
Most of the passengers were from Kerala and were in deep slumber when the mishap occurred.
According to Kerala Transport Minister AK Saseendran, there were 48 passengers on the bus and most of them had booked their tickets to Palakkad and Kochi. Police and local residents rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to Avinashi, Tirupur and Coimbatore government hospitals.
The bus was expected to reach Kochi at 7:00 am and had left for Bengaluru from Ernakulam on Monday. Since there were no enough passengers for the return trip, the bus which was to leave on Tuesday evening, left a day later on Wednesday evening.
KSRTC officials from the Palakkad depot also reached the spot.
In the second mishap involving a Kerala bus, six tourists from Nepal, including two women, were killed in an accident after a Kerala-bound Omnibus from Bengaluru rammed into the tourist bus in Salem in Tamil Nadu on Thursday.
According to the police, the tourist bus from Nepal carrying more than 25 tourists was headed towards Rajasthan from Kanyakumari. They had planned to stay at a temple hall at Chinnanadupatti in Salem district. At Omalur in Salem-Bengaluru National Highway, the tourist bus driver suddenly took a sharp turn to the right to cross the road. At that time, an Omni bus headed towards Kerala from Bengaluru collided with the tourist bus.
In the accident, six Nepali tourists including two women were killed on the spot and around 20 tourists sustained injuries and were admitted to Salem Government Hospital and a nearby private hospital.
In the third mishap, three people died and 10 injured in major accident on set of actor Kamal Haasan's Indian 2 in Chennai.
The mishap that occurred on Wednesday night when a crane fell on the workers as the set was being constructed.
Kamal Haasan took to Twitter to share his sorrow of the mishap. "I have faced and overcome many accidents, but today's is the most horrific one. I lost three colleagues. The distress of their family members will be many times greater than my own pain. I share their grief as one of them. My deepest condolences to them," he wrote.
Among the dead was director Shankar’s personal assistant Madhu, 29, and assistant director Krishna, 34. Shankar was working close to the spot, but had a miraculous escape.
Kamal rushed to the spot and arranged for the injured to be taken to the hospital immediately.
The accident happened when a light set-up on top of a crane fell on the crew.
Indian 2 is currently being shot at EVP Studios in Chennai. The film, starring Kamal Haasan in the lead role and Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet, Siddharth in pivotal roles, is expected to hit the theatres early 2021.
Indian 2 is the sequel to Kamal Haasan's 1996 film Indian, a vigilante action thriller.
