There was utter chaos on Vikas Marg on Thursday evening when fire broke out in a DTC low floor AC bus, heading from ITO towards Laxmi Nagar in East Delhi. The incident took place amid heavy traffic when the driver, seeing smoke, parked the bus on the roadside.
"As the fire broke out, the driver parked the bus on the side of the road. Fire tenders and PCR vans reached the spot and the fire was doused. There was water and oil all around the road," said Ashok Kumar an eye-witness.
No casualties were reported as passengers managed to rush out in time, police said.
According to the police, it was around 8 pm, when a passenger in the bus started noticing heavy smoke from the bus and alerted the conductor. The smoke soon turned into a heavy blaze and gutted the bus. Witnesses said that that there was panic on the road among the occupants of the bus who narrowly escaped. Some of them were injured while trying to rush out of the bus.
Since it occurred during heavy traffic hours, police and fire tenders could only reach the bus once it was completely gutted. The incident, however led to long traffic snarls on Vikas Marg stretching up to ITO and beyond.
Senior traffic cops said that policemen were immediately deployed to control the situation and ensure smooth flow of traffic. However, it took traffic policemen more than two hours to bring the traffic to normal as the peak hour traffic had started.
