Kurnool bus tragedy: smart phone batteries intensified blaze

Police investigation into the Kurnool bus tragedy is now trying to determine if there was a collision or the two-wheeler rider had died earlier, and the ill-fated bus of V Kaveri Travels had run over the stationary, overturned bike, and dragged it, leading to the fire.

It has emerged that the driver of the bus, Lakshmaiah, had escaped through the passenger door after the fire started.

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The bus was also illicitly carrying 234 smartphones in the luggage cabin, and the explosion of their batteries and that of the Air conditioning made it into a raging inferno, which gutted the bus within minutes.

The police team piecing together the sequence of events before the accident also picked up the pillion rider, Nani, who was with the 24-year-old rider Shivshankar when the accident happened.

Earlier, it was thought that Shivshankar had died in the collision with the bus. The pillion rider, Nani, told the police that the bike had skidded and both had been thrown to the ground, with Shivshankar dying instantly on the spot.

Within minutes, the ill-fated private bus ran over the stationary bike, dragging it some distance away before catching fire. Shivshankar and Nani were on the way to Dhone when the accident happened.

A CCTV grab of a petrol pump where the duo had stopped before leaving for Dhone showed the two walking a bit unsteadily and riding recklessly.

The blaze was intensified by a consignment of 234 smartphones worth Rs 46 lakh that were being sent to an e-retail company in Bengaluru by a mobile phone distributor from Hyderabad, which had been stored in the luggage cabin at the rear of the bus.

According to the forensic team, the explosion of the lithium batteries in the phones added to the intensity of the fire, which even melted the aluminium sheets on the floor of the bus. Within minutes, the entire bus was in flames, and eyewitnesses reported hearing the sound of explosions.

The carrying of merchandise on a passenger vehicle was illegal but such rules are routinely flouted by the private buses.

The bus driver, Lakshmaiah who had exited from the passenger door, had woken up the second driver, Siva Narayana, sleeping near the luggage cabin and they both came out of the bus. Realising the door was locked, they broke open the window with a wrench used to change tyres and helped some passengers to come out. Later, he had fled the scene but was picked up by the police.

Lakshmaiah is said to have obtained his license for driving heavy vehicles by submitting fake certificates of educational qualification.

Meanwhile, a private bus with 20 passengers onboard and travelling between Miyapur and Guntur overturned on the Outer Ring Road in Hyderabad. Since last night, the Telangana transport department has started a crackdown on the hundreds of buses plying between Bengaluru and other cities of AP and Karnataka.