AP Photo: The charred remains of a passenger bus lie on a highway in Chinnatekuru village,  in Andhra Pradesh state, India

Source: Aljazeera

DST News: At least 25 people have died and several others were injured after a passenger bus burst into flames following a collision with a motorcycle in India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh, police said on Friday.

The accident occurred in the early hours of the morning near Chinnatekuru village in Kurnool district, as the bus was travelling along a highway from Hyderabad in Telangana to Bengaluru in Karnataka.

According to senior police official Vikrant Patil, the motorcycle rammed into the rear of the moving bus and became lodged underneath. Sparks from the collision ignited the bus’s fuel tank, setting the vehicle ablaze within minutes.

“The driver stopped the bus and tried to use a fire extinguisher, but the fire spread too quickly,” Patil said.

Many of the passengers, who were asleep at the time, became trapped inside as the flames engulfed the bus. Some managed to break windows and escape with minor injuries, while others were burned alive before emergency services could reach the scene. The motorcyclist was also killed in the fire.

Officials said 18 passengers survived the blaze and are being treated for injuries, though the exact number of people who escaped remains unclear. A forensic team has been deployed to investigate the cause of the fire.

The bus, which had 44 passengers on board, was completely destroyed in the blaze.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

This tragedy marks the second deadly bus fire in India in less than two weeks. Earlier this month, at least 20 people were killed in Rajasthan when a suspected short circuit caused a passenger bus to catch fire.