Berhampur: Five persons, including three women, were killed and around 30 injured when a bus overturned at Takara under Daspalla police station limits in Nayagarh district in the early hours of Saturday.The bus, carrying over 50 people — mostly women from Berhampur working in a private mixture manufacturing unit— was travelling to Harishankar in Balangir district when it overturned on the Hanuman Ghat road near Daspalla, police sources said.Fire personnel, police teams from Daspalla and local residents rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to Daspalla hospital, where doctors declared five of them dead, said Binay Kumar Parida, IIC, Daspalla. “The dead include an elderly couple, the bus driver and two women,” he said.Eight critically injured passengers were shifted to the Nayagarh district headquarters hospital, while two others were referred to AIIMS Bhubaneswar as their condition deteriorated.The deceased were identified as L. Hari Patra (62) and his wife L. Laxmi Patra (56) of Ashok Nagar, Sumati Sahoo (32) of Ananda Nagar, Suprabha Sahoo (52) of Bank Colony, Gate Bazar, and Prabin Kumar Sahoo (28), the driver, of Kulad near Bhanjanagar.Chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi, deputy CM Pravati Parida and leader of opposition Naveen Patnaik expressed grief and offered condolences to the bereaved families. The chief minister announced an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh each from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF).After the post-mortem examinations, the Nayagarh administration arranged ambulances to send the bodies to their native places.Though the exact cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained, police said the driver appeared to have lost control of the vehicle. “The bus was moving at high speed. Before overturning, it hit a roadside electric pole,” police said. Most passengers were asleep when the accident took place.“The bus suddenly overturned. We managed to come out, but five others were trapped inside. Fire personnel rescued them and shifted them to hospital,” said Lili Sahu, a passenger.“We had hired the bus to visit 11 tourist places across the state during a three-day trip. It left Berhampur around 8 pm, and the accident happened around 2 am,” another passenger said.
