NEW DELHI, Jan 3: At least 23 people were killed in two bizarre accidents in Uttar Pradesh and Kerala on Sunday.
In Muradnagar in the Meerut division in UP, 17 people who had gone to cremate a relative were themselves killed when the roof of a shelter at the crematorium collapsed.
Official sources said about 100 people were attending the funeral of a resident of Dayanand colony who died on Saturday. More than 60 people were inside the shelter when its roof collapsed. The police and administration team arrived at the spot on receiving information and rescued the people, who were then admitted to Ghaziabad District Hospital.
“17 people have died so far while 38 people have been rescued after a shed collapsed in Muradnagar. We’ve started a probe and we’ll take strict action against those found guilty,” a senior state government official said.
Officials said the building structure at the cremation ground was not very old and it is feared that the incident took place because the building was constructed in an area where frequent water-logging takes place. Due to heavy rain, the soil moved causing the collapse of the structure.
The prime minister Narendra Modi and the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath have condoled the death of the people in the incident. Adityanath has instructed officials to provide financial assistance of Rs two lakhs each to the dependents of the deceased in the accident.
In another incident, at least six persons were killed when a private bus, packed with a marriage party, lost control and veered from the fly-over road before falling on a house in Panathur in north Kerala’s Kasaragod district on Sunday, police said. Among the dead were two children under five years.
Police said all the travellers were from Karnataka, who were headed to attend a marriage in a village along the Kerala-Karnataka border. The bus was speeding when it lost control while descending a slope and overturned before falling on top of an uninhibited house, at least 20 foot beneath the road, said the police.
The injured were rushed to Kanhangad government hospital and those in serious condition were referred to Mangaluru, a senior police official of Kasaragod district, said. Seven passengers are reported to be in a critical condition.
Initial reports suggest there were around 60 passengers in the bus and locals said the tragedy would have been worse if the house was inhabited. Rescue workers and the local people broke open the bus to rescue the trapped, police said.
The bus was coming from Eswaramangalam in Karnataka and headed for a border village in Kerala.
(Manas Dasgupta)