Bahraich (UP), May 19: The death toll in the devastating fire in a UP pilgrim bus shot up to 17 with the recovery of eight more bodies on Saturday. A lady referred to Lucknow hospital succumbed to injuries this morning.
The bus exploded into a ball of fire because of gas cylinders carried inside, after it was hit by a truck near Bahraich on Friday night.
Fourteen persons suffered serious burns and are undergoing treatment.
The collision took place on Gonda-Bahraich road near Chilwaria village and caught fire on Friday night.
The Uttar Pradesh government has announced an ex-gratia assistance of Rs 1 lakh to the kin of each of those killed, Rs 50,000 to those critically injured and free treatment to all injured passengers.
The dead include five children and four women. Some of the bodies charred in the fire are yet to be identified.
Ten persons are still undergoing treatment in Bahraich district hospital while one person is struggling for life in a Lucknow hospital. There were several gas cylinders and stoves inside the bus, which caused the devastating fire.
A magisterial inquiry has been ordered, District Magistrate Kinjal Singh said.
Superintendent of Police, Bahraich, B P Kanaujia said that a total of 16 bodies have been recovered including that of seven women.
The seventeenth person, a woman Akbari died in Lucknow.
Though Kinjal declined to specify how many people were inside the 54-seater bus, which was carrying the pilgrims from Ambedkar Nagar to Ajmer Sharif, Chief Development Officer of the district Sukhlal Bharti said the bus was carrying about 60 to 70 people.
However, Mehdi Raza, one of the rescued passengers, said that there were about 80 people in the bus when the accident took place.
Kinjal said the bus caught fire possibly due to the explosion of a cooking gas cylinder inside the vehicle. However an inquiry will establish the cause, she added.
Rescuers had used gas-cutters to cut open the twisted metal of the bus to pull out bodies and survivors from inside the vehicle.
