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BENGALURU: Henceforth, keeping hammers has been made compulsory in all air-conditioned (ac) buses to help passengers break window panes in case of an emergency such as fire, and escape from being trapped. Taking note of the fire in a bus near Kurnool of Andhra Pradesh, a couple of days back, the Transport department has made it mandatory to keep hammers inside buses among other measures. In the Kurnool bus tragedy, many passengers managed to escape from the raging fire in the buses, somehow breaking the windshield and window panes. It is said about 18 passengers inside the raging fire in the bus escape from being trapped. Among the survivors in the Kurnool bus fire, Akash, a passenger, managed to escape from the raging fire of the bus through the window next to the driver’s seat and soon some other passengers also followed him to escape from the route. “The fire spread in a quick time and passengers had very little to escape from the fire. It took about 10 seconds to escape from the bus,” Akash said. About 12 passengers escaped the fire through the rear window of the bus. Another survivor Venu Gonda, a passenger on board the bus on the tragedy day stated he tried to break window glasses but went in vain when one of a fellow passenger managed to break the glass which allowed some of the trapped passengers to escape from the bus on fire. The breaking of glass helped about 15 passengers to escape from the raging fire in the bus. Apart from keeping hammers in air conditioned buses, Minister of Transport Ramalinga Reddy, in a statement here on Sunday, stated officials should ensure no commercial luggages including explosives which can instantly catch fire should not be allowed in buses. None should be allowed to sleep in luggage space and directed officials to regularly conduct inspection of renewal of Fitness Certificate (FCs) of buses.
