more-in As many as 20 passengers aboard a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus had a miraculous escape after the driver saw smoke spewing out of the engine from his rear view mirror while driving on the ITI flyover in K.R. Puram on Wednesday morning. The driver, Kumaraswamy, quickly parked the bus on the side of the road and started evacuating the passengers to safety. According to witnesses, a few minutes later, the bus was engulfed in flames. The incident occurred around 5 a.m. when the sleeper coach bus was heading to Majestic from Tirupati via K.R. Puram. “When I saw the smoke, I stopped the bus to see what had happened. On a closer look, I saw that the engine was on fire,” said Kumaraswamy. On realising that it was only a matter of time before the fire spread, he ran back into the bus and alerted the passengers, most of whom were fast asleep. Kumaraswamy, 41, has been working in KSRTC for the last 13 years. Unlike seater buses, evacuating passengers from a sleeper coach can be very difficult as passengers would have been occupying upper and lower berths. However, the process went off smoothly. “I also alerted fire emergency personnel and the police. Passenger thanked me for helping them to get off the bus before it was engulfed in flames,” he added. The K.R. Puram police arrived at the spot to manage traffic movement while fire tenders doused the blaze. “The fire was contained, but the bus was gutted,” a senior police officer said. Traffic movement on the busy flyover was disrupted for some time before a crane was used to move the charred bus to the side. The police, with the help of KSRTC officials, arranged another bus for the passengers. A preliminary investigation pointed to a technical problem in the engine. Passengers and the police lauded Kumaraswamy’s presence of mind and quick thinking.

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