Two kids die as school bus plunges into canal in East Godavari (Andhra Pradesh)

                                 

Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh): Two students were killed and 15 went missing when a school bus fell into a canal near here in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, police said.

The bus, carrying 45 Lower KG and Upper KG students of  Sai Teja Public School and its own staff overturned and fell into the Godavari river canal near Ganti Pedapudi village.

Thirty children were rescued by locals, they said. The sources, however, said the total number of students in the bus could be over 50 and "we will have a clear picture only after collecting the details of the children of the school and students who had boarded the bus on the way".

Four bodies have been recovered so far and a search operation has been launched for the missing students, police said, adding some students were injured in the accident.

Expert swimmers from Rajahmundry and Kakinada were requisitioned for search operations. Due to darkness and heavy flow of water in the canal, the rescue operations were hampered. The authorities sought the help of local fishermen, who tied fishing nets at the Gannavaram main irrigation canal at Mondepulanka to stop the missing children from being washed away. Aggrieved parents of some of the students reached the mishap site, 65 km from Rajahmundry. With locals from nearby villages rushing to the spot, traffic movement was affected .

"The villagers rescued 15 children and brought out two bodies. Since no more parents have come forward searching for their children till now, we assume there were no more children in the bus since the driver had dropped some of them mid-way," a revenue officer, overseeing the rescue operations, said. But locals said there could be 5-6 students when the bus plunged into the canal.

Sources said the buses of the private schools were not in proper condition. The authorities had seized one of the four buses of the school for bad maintenance six months ago.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy directed District Collector Neethu Kumari Prasad to provide adequate medical facilities to the injured who were admitted to a nearby hospital, officials said.

The driver of the ill-fated bus was untraced, police said adding and a search was launched to locate him.

Authorities pressed into service divers to trace the missing students in the canal, police said.