Newspaper Report: A Severe Road Accident | WBBSE Class 9 English

Barasat, September 24: In a horrifying road mishap, at least four passengers, including an elderly woman and a ten-year-old child, were killed on the spot and twenty-two others sustained critical injuries following a head-on collision between a packed private bus and a speeding ten-wheeler freight truck on National Highway 34 near Chapadali crossing earlier this morning.

According to eyewitness accounts, the catastrophe occurred around 7:45 AM amidst blinding morning fog. The private passenger bus, bound for Barasat from Krishnanagar, was cruising at breakneck speed trying to overtake a minivan. In doing so, the driver lost steering control and rammed headlong into a heavily loaded goods carrier hurtling from the opposite direction. The tremendous impact of the crash was deafening; the front half of the bus was crumpled like a tin can, and the vehicle skidded violently off the asphalt, plunging into a six-foot-deep roadside ditch.

Hearing the desperate shrieks and cries of trapped passengers, local residents and shopkeepers rushed valiantly to the site and commenced rescue operations with crowbars and axes. Within twenty minutes, personnel from the Barasat Police Station and two fire tenders arrived. The critically wounded victims were immediately extricated from the mangled wreckage and rushed via ambulances to the Barasat Sub-Divisional Hospital, where the condition of six is reported to be precarious. The accident severely disrupted vehicular traffic along the arterial highway for over two hours until cranes cleared the debris. The district administration has announced ex-gratia compensation for the kin of the deceased, and a high-level probe has been initiated to ascertain vehicular fitness and driver culpability.