3 People were killed in bus stand collapse

Bidar, September 18 :

 Three people were dead, 27 injured six of them seriously when an RTC bus stand, caved in at Bhalki town in Bidar district on Friday. The incident that took place during busy hours at 11 am has disrupted the normal flow of traffic to various destinations from Bhalki bus stand, which has been a connecting point to many border towns in Maharashtra.
 
Only rubble, a mix of concrete and iron, has remained of the structure with the roof and its supporting pillars collapsed. According to eye-witness accounts the bus stand came down all of a sudden with loud thudding. About two hundred policemen, including fire tenders were pressed into service to clear the debris and to find any survivors inside the collapsed structure, but no one was found inside the ruins.

RTC has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the kin of the deceased and Rs 5000 to the injured, said NEKRTC divisional controller Venkateshwara Rao. Twenty one persons who suffered minor injuries were being treated at taluk government hospital at Bhalki while six persons with serious injuries were shifted to the government general hospital at Bidar. It was the second mishap in a fortnight the RTC faced in Bhalki taluk of the district. Exactly a fortnight back on September 4, an RTC bus plunged into Karanja river at Dadgi village in Bhalki taluk in which five persons died.

The deceased were identified as Naseer Saugdgar (21), Ritu Bai (35) and Kausalya Bai (32), all hailing from Bhalki taluk.