Photo taken on Feb. 20, 2020 shows the site of a road mishap, involving a bus and a truck, in Avinashi area, Tiruppur district of the Tamil Nadu state, south India. The death toll in Thursday's road mishap in Tamil Nadu state has climbed up to 20, a local administration official told Xinhua over phone. (Str/Xinhua)
NEW DELHI, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in Thursday's road mishap in south India's Tamil Nadu state has climbed up to 20, a local administration official told Xinhua over phone.
The mishap, involving a bus and a truck, happened at around 3:30 a.m. local time in Avinashi area of Tiruppur district of the state. One of the tyres of the bus burst, as a result of which the driver lost control and the vehicle rammed into a truck coming from the opposite direction. Both the vehicles were said to be in high speed.
The bus belonged to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation. Kerala is another south Indian state adjacent to Tamil Nadu. The bus was going from Bengaluru city (capital of southern state of Karnataka) to Kerala's Ernakulam.
Most of the passengers in the ill-fated bus belonged to Kerala.
"We have recovered 20 dead bodies, including 15 men and five women. There were 48 passengers in the bus. The rest 28 have been injured, four of them seriously. All the injured have been admitted in a local hospital," an administration official told Xinhua.
Meanwhile, Kerala Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran said that senior officials from Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) had rushed to the site. KSRTC's managing director will conduct an inquiry and submit report, he said.
