Nuh tragedy exposes gap in plan to handle exigency

GURGAON: The tragedy that led to the death of nine bus passengers revealed a critical gap in the emergency response mechanism of KMP expressway, the 135km corridor linking north and south Haryana that was designed as a bypass for Delhi.
The fire that engulfed the airconditioned bus carrying 60 people on the expressway off Dhulawat village in Tauru was reported to the authorities around 1.30am on Saturday.Although police and the rapid patrolling vehicle of the expressway arrived within minutes, locals, bus passengers and expressway emergency response personnel said on Saturday it took nearly an hour for the first fire engine to reach the spot.
The nearest fire station in Nuh, the district where the accident happened, is 15km away. Fire stations in Nuh face their own water crises. The Sohna (Gurgaon) fire station is closer to the accident spot, around 10km away, but a fire tender from there reached the spot after the Nuh fire engines.
Narender Singh, who was on duty in the rapid patrolling vehicle, said he was informed by a commuter who had spotted the flames. "We were only 5km ahead of the bus when we we were informed about it. We took a U-turn and reached the bus within minutes. We informed the fire department in Nuh around 1.30am. Prima facie, it looks like the incident happened because of a short-circuit," said Singh, the first to reach the trapped passengers.
By that time, smoke had turned the bus into a gas chamber. Locals and policemen broke windows to let the smoke out and rescue those at the back. Some passengers, according to a survivor, jumped out.
The fire department in Nuh denied there had been a delay, saying fire engines were immediately dispatched. There was, however, a difference in the time when Singh said he reported the fire and the fire department claimed to have received it. The bus is believed to have stopped half an hour before the incident at a petrol pump.
Rameshwar Singh, the fire officer in Nuh, said, "We received the emergency call at 1.45am and fire tenders reached the incident spot in 15-20 minutes. A total of five fire tenders responded - three from Tauru fire station and one each from Nuh and Sohna. Due to the nature of the vehicle, the fire spread rapidly, and it took the team around one and a half hours to extinguish the flames completely. There was no delay in our response."
The expressway's access-controlled lanes complicate emergency responses as vehicles must either pass Rewasan toll plaza or Tauru toll plaza to reach the spot, a detour of 5-6 km. KMP is equipped with rapid patrolling vehicles, cranes, ambulances and numbers (1033 and 112) for emergency response but does not have a dedicated fire station or fire brigade reserve. Haryana industry authority HSIIDC said it will ask the expressway operator to set up a dedicated fire station for KMP. "Ambulances from Tauru, Palwal and Manesar were rushed to the spot," a senior HSIIDC official said.
"While RPVs (rapid patrolling vehicles) are equipped with fire extinguishers, something this massive cannot be handled by them and only the fire brigade is equipped to do it," said Parveen Kumar, manager at KMP, HSIIDC.
According to a local resident, the bus driver initially ignored alerts to stop. "He stopped only after a biker blocked his path. But by then, flames had engulfed it. It was really scary," said Sabir, a Dhulawat resident
Nafees, the villager who stopped the bus, said, "The driver got alarmed when he noticed me approaching the bus rapidly on the desolate highway, thinking we are robbers. So instead of stopping, he accelerated. I had to get in front of the bus and force it to stop. But the flames had spread by then," he told TOI.