Eight people were killed and 15 others injured after a minibus carrying around 23 passengers veered off the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway and plunged into a 15-foot-deep drain in Rajasthan’s Kota district on Saturday morning.
The accident occurred around 6 am near pole number 384 on the expressway. Eight of the injured passengers were reported to be in critical condition.
Authorities suspect the driver may have dozed off or felt drowsy, causing the vehicle to veer off the eight-lane road.
Rescue teams launched an operation soon after the accident. Mud and water inside the drain initially hampered efforts to reach those trapped in the vehicle. Cranes were subsequently deployed to pull out the damaged minibus and assist in the recovery operation.
Kota Rural Superintendent of Police Sujeet Shankar said most of the passengers belonged to extended families from Bhopal and Betul districts of Madhya Pradesh. They had set out from Bhopal on Friday evening for a four-to-five-day pilgrimage in Rajasthan.
An injured passenger, Anshika, said she was travelling with her uncles, aunts and other relatives to visit the Khatu Shyamji temple. The group had left Bhopal around 7 pm on Friday, and most passengers were asleep when the accident occurred. She suspected that the driver had dozed off.
The injured were taken to New Medical College Hospital and MBS Hospital in Kota.
Dr Nilesh Jain, principal of New Medical College Hospital, said treatment and investigations, including CT scans, were initiated promptly. Dr Ashutosh Sharma, superintendent of the hospital’s Super Speciality Block, said the facility received 15 patients. Seven were brought dead, while the remaining eight received emergency stabilisation and further medical care.
Police said eight people had died in the accident. Authorities were continuing rescue and clearance operations and verifying details of the passengers.