Ayoor, Kollam: The site of the accident involving a car and a KSRTC bus at Akamon, near here, on Saturday afternoon, in which six members of a family were killed, presented a gory scene.
For those who rushed to the spot upon hearing the loud sound of the collision, the trauma of seeing six people, including two children, dying right in front of their eyes is not going to get over any time soon.
Though the onlookers were taken aback by the grisly sight of blood stains and pieces of flesh strewn all over the vehicle, regaining their composure, they launched rescue operations immediately and attempted to pull out the victims stuck inside the mangled car.
In the impact of the collision, the front end of the car got trapped beneath the bus, making efforts to retrieve the victims difficult and complicated.
The deceased were identified as Mini, 48, daughter Anjana, 22, sister-in-law Smitha, 33, her children Abhinaj, 8, and Harsha, 3, and Smitha’s nephew Arun, 24, who drove the car. All of them were natives of Vadasserikara near Chengannur.
According to eyewitnesses, five of them died on the spot. When they reached the spot, one of the two children, who was later identified as Abhinaj, had been found to be alive. Without wasting time, the locals smashed the glass window and took out the boy and his three-year-old sister Harsha.
The police, with the help of passers-by, tilted the bus and moved the car away. They broke open the car using metal tools being brought from a nearby automobile workshop and pulled all the victims out.
The first to rush to the spot was employees of the workshop and shopkeepers in the vicinity.
Following the incident, free movement of traffic was affected on MC road for over several hours. Fire and safety department officers cleaned up blood and oil spills from the site and applied stone dust along the path to prevent vehicle slips.
Soon after the news of the accident broke, people from the surrounding areas started to throng the site, resulting in traffic snarls. Following which vehicles heading towards Ayur were diverted through the old road near Akamon.
Abhinaj, who was alive when he was brought out of the car, was rushed to the SAT Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, but doctors declared him dead two hours after admission. The other victims were shifted to different hospitals in police jeeps and ambulances. The mangled remains of the car were later removed using a crane.
The victims were identified with the help of their identity cards and mobiles that were scattered inside the vehicle. Officials sifted through their belongings and discovered Aadhaar cards of Mini and Arun, and the driving licence of Anjana. They contacted the Vadasserikkara police after it was found that Arun hailed from there.
The incident occurred around 1.30 pm. As per witnesses’ accounts, it was a head-on collision between the bus and the car. The ill-fated car was trying to overtake a truck at a curve resulting in the collision with the KSRTC which was heading to Thiruvananthapuram from Kottarakara, they said.
