Some months back, a terrible accident took place a few kilometeres from where we lived. Apparently a local bus, overloaded with people coming back to Gangtok after the holidays, went straight off a cliff and fell 100 feet down into the river Teesta. About 50 people were reportedly killed and several injured. The dead and dying lay all over the length of the accident spot; some managed to jump off the bus metres below the main road, the less fortunate ones were crushed to death in the bus itself and some people were swept away by the river, their bodies never to be found.
The body count was heart wrenching; young teenage boys, women and children, fathers, husbands, wives… while the rest of the family who survived the accident tearfully searched in vain. The rescue workers were part volunteers, who pitched in to walk down the steep cliff, all the way to the river, looking for the injured and hauling them up to the road. One particular young man was at the other bank of the river, grazing his cows when he saw the bus topple down the cliff. He swam all the way to the other end of the accident spot and singlehandedly carried out three to four injured people from the river bank to the road. In his interview on local TV later, he said that he carried water from the river in his mouth, to give it to the dying and the injured.
Cause of the accident remains unclear. Whats should be clear to everyone, especially the authorities, is that a lot of people lost their lives. Is there a lesson behind all this? I can only find one – dont use the local transports, even if your life depended on it.
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