Injured students say the bus was driving too fast

Students injured in the school bus accident in Pokhara said the accident may have been due to excessive speed.

The students reported to Pokhara Mayor Dhanraj Acharya that the driver was speeding today. Acharya visited various hospitals to enquire about the health of the injured.

“The bus was traveling at high speed today, unlike before,” said a student. “The bus went off the road and crashed on a curve.”

Saman Gurung, a member of the user committee for the road construction work on the Fushrekhola-Ramdi-Mattikhan road, said they had warned the driver beforehand.

“It’s a newly built road,” he said. “We have repeatedly asked drivers to slow down. If it had been an unpaved road, the speed would have been lower and the bus might not have crashed. Since the road has been paved, drivers have been speeding recklessly.”

According to an eyewitness, Krishna Devkota, chairman of the Ramdi Ekhatte Tole Development Committee, the bus collided with an electricity pole and a tree before falling onto the road.

Due to the gravel lying on the road, two-wheelers often skid on the recently paved road. Three days ago, the committee asked the road construction department to complete the work and clear the gravel.

Two people, including a student, were killed and 28 others injured when a school bus crashed in Pokhara Metropolitan City’s Ward 21, Kaski, on Sunday.

The dead were a 35-year-old employee of LP Devkota Memorial School in Pokhara-17 and her six-year-old son, a senior kindergarten student. The woman died at the scene, while the boy succumbed to his injuries during treatment at Gandaki Medical College.

According to police, the bus skidded on a hairpin bend on the way back to school from Ramdi and fell about 50 meters.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Basanta Kumar Sharma, spokesman for Kaski police, said 13 of the injured were being treated at Gandaki Medical College, 12 at Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences and three at Manipal Teaching Hospital.