One dead and 18 severely injured as minibus falls into ditch

Report and Pictures by Prakash Katapadi
Bellevision Media Network

 

Katapadi, 8 June 2010: A minibus with 25 passeengers went off the road and fell into a ditch at Kallapu near Katapadi Moodabettu in the evening of Monday, 7th June 2010. This resulted in the death of a young woman and severe injuries to 18 of the passengers.

The young woman who died in the accident is named Geetnajali (18), daughter of Yadava Acharya residing near Kotekar Kalikamba temple. Two other seriously injured passengers are treated in a private hospital in Udupi. Another woman named Anasuya is serious as a rod pierced her schest due to the impact of the accident. The injured persons are treated in different hospitals.

The accident took place when a minibus carrying 25 persons who had attended a religious function at Katapadi was returning to their place at Kotekar. According to a report, the minibus fell in the ditch when it tried to give way for the speeding express bus on the highway and went off the small bridge whose railing walls had been damaged earlier by an accident few years ago. It is possible that the driver of the minibus might have lost control in this process as the road was also wet due to  slight rain.

The railing walls of the bridge near which the accident had taken place had been damaged due to an earlier accident and the highway authorities had not bothered to repair or rebuild these walls. In a similar way, the supporting side walls of the Pangala bridge have been also damaged and are yet to be rebuilt. Soon after the accident on Monday, the acting Udupi District Commissioner, Prabhakar and the Transport Commissioner Ramesh had visited the  site of the accident and have  asked the concerned departments to expedite the construction of the guard walls of the bridge at the earliest. The Karkala DYSP Santosh Kumar was also present at the mishap site.