The Highway

to Death

Jyoti Lal Chowdhury

As the accident happened around 10 pm of June 14 with darkness all around in the absence of electricity in the area, rescue operations could not be carried out effectively by a large contingent of police team from Umkiang assisted by BSF, local VDP and the residents of the area.

According to District Emergency Operation Centre (DEOC) of Cachar, till the last stage of rescue operation, 26 dead bodies have been retrieved from the wreckage site while 9 critically injured admitted in different hospitals of Meghalaya. Of them, 7 dead bodies could not be identified. Till the time of filing of this report, rescue operation was continuing to find out if any other body was trapped under the vehicle which was badly mangled. According to Spill Thamar, police chief of East Jaintia Hills, the exact cause of accident is yet to be ascertained. He pointed out that the rescuers had to risk their life to climb down to the accident spot. The police chief also said though the area from Sonapur to Tongseng is highly accident prone, this is for the first time that a passenger bus fell from near the holy Durga temple area into the gorge. As the deep gorge infested with jungles is steep, rescuers used ropes to get down to the spot where the bus plunged.

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