A fatal road accident in Kapilvastu in the wee hours on Thursday took 10 lives.

A rescue team could reach the accident site after only around one and half hours of the deadly accident when a bus crashed at ward 1 of Shivaraj Municipality in Kapilvastu district along the East-West Highway.

The fatal crash occurred at around 12:35 am. It was 2:00 am when a police team reached the incident site.

Police said the bus heading for Kathmandu from Mahendranagar of Kanchanpur district swerved off the road and plunged 200 metres into the Surahi stream. The vehicle belonging to Sunaulo Mahakali Yatayat veered off the bend near Dobato.

According to Superintendent of Police Navaratna Paudel, three women and seven men died on the spot. The casualties occurred as the bus fell over the cliff, went tumbling down before landing on the stream below, he said.

Police identified the deceased as Narayan Bahadur Bhandari of ward 3 of Aurahi Municipality in Rautahat; Arjun Kumar Yogi of Salyan; and Rahulram Kami, Umesh Bhandari, Sanju Thapa, Khageshwari Khati, Sudip Bhatta and Bisandutta Bhatta of Bhimdutta Municipality in Kanchanpur district. Similarly, Bimala Devi Bhatta of Punarbas Municipality in Kanchanpur was killed in the fatal crash. Sakil Musalman of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh also died.

There were 40 people—37 passengers and three crew members—on board at the time of the accident. A Nepal Army man and three of his family members were medevaced to the Military Hospital in Kathmandu while nine people are being treated in Butwal. Seventeen people returned home after treatment in Kapilvastu and Butwal.

The cause of the accident is not immediately known, said police. Anil Tamrakar of Kirtipur, Kathmandu who survived the accident, said the bus was not speeding. “I heard some cranking sound as if there was a problem in the gearbox. The lights suddenly went off and the bus skidded off the road,” Tamrakar said recalling the tragic moment.

According to survivors, the vehicle lost control and started lurching right and left. The passengers cried for help. Driver Purna Bahadur Chand, who was also injured, said the accident happened due to a brake failure. “The vehicle’s brakes did not work on the steep road. I tried to control, but to no avail. I ploughed the vehicle on the wall but the vehicle bounced off and fell off the road,” he said.

Delayed rescue adds woes to the victims

The fatal crash occurred at around 12:35 am. Two or three survivors somehow emerged out of the mangled bus and climbed up to the road. They tried to stop vehicles heading to Chandrauta to inform them about the accident, but the vehicles did not stop. There was no telephone network at the accident site. One of them could inform the police only around 1:30 am by dialling 100. A police team from the Police Post in Chandrauta reached the site only at around 2am. Additional police forces arrived after half an hour.

Rescue work was difficult due to the difficult terrain and darkness. The rescue gathered momentum only after the security personnel from the disaster rescue team of Armed Police Force (APF) in Bhalubang reached the site. “Rescue work was quite hard due to difficult geography. We rescued the injured using ropes along the cliff,” said APF Superintendent Jiban Bahadur KC.

Road accidents are common in the country that kill hundreds of people every year. Three major road accidents happened in Kapilvastu, Palpa and Dang of Lumbini Province over the past 34 days, claiming 32 lives.

On Tuesday, 10 people died and 17 others were injured in a passenger jeep accident at ward 6 of Tinau Rural Municipality in Palpa district. The jam-packed vehicle plunged some 150 metres from a bend at Lumpekdanda. Police said the accident took place on a rough and steep road due to overload. The 13-seater jeep was carrying passengers far beyond its capacity.

In Dang, 12 people died and 24 others were injured after a passenger bus plunged into the Rapti river in Dang district on January 12. The Kathmandu bound bus veered off the Rapti bridge in Bhalubang along the East-West Highway.

Experts say multiple factors are responsible for recurring fatal road crashes in the country.

Transport and traffic engineer Ashish Gajurel recently told the Post that poor road infrastructure, ill-maintained vehicles and reckless driving are the major causes for such incidents. Other problems identified by police in their investigations are drink driving and driving without licence, which are common mainly in rural parts of the country where monitoring is lax.