By IANS
Coimbatore : A child was killed and 20 others injured when a school bus they were travelling in fell into a gorge near the resort town of Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiri district, police said Thursday.
The bus was carrying 45 children on a hilly track Tuesday evening. Attempting to negotiate a hairpin bend, it fell into a 150 feet gorge at Manjur, 35 km from Udhagamandalam, popularly called Ooty.
Police said rescue operations took a long time due to the depth of the gorge. The injured were initially taken to a hospital in Manjur but one child died of profuse bleeding as there was no doctor at the hospital to provide first aid.
The injured are now in hospitals in Manjur and Coimbatore. Five children and the driver of the vehicle are in critical condition.
Police sources said the bus was not built to specifications needed to ply on hill roads.