All 30 bodies retrieved from gorge

The bodies of all the 30 victims of Saturday’s bus accident in Maharashtra's Raigad district were retrieved from a gorge, police said on Sunday.

As all the bodies were retrieved, the police called off the rescue operation at Ambenali Ghat near Poladpur town, located around 180 km from here, Kundan Gawde, PRO, Raigad Police, said.

Asked about the death toll, he said, “We have received information from the Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth in Dapoli that only 31 staff members were travelling in the ill-fated bus and not 34 (as reported earlier).”

Of the 31 persons, including the driver, only one — Prakash Sawant-Desai — survived the accident as he jumped out of the bus, he added. Gawde said all the victims were identified and the bodies handed over to their family members after completing the formalities.

The victims were staffers of the Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, located at Dapoli in Ratnagiri district, the police said.

They had hired the private bus for a picnic and were headed towards Mahabaleshwar when the tragedy struck at Ambenali Ghat, the police added. The bus skidded off the road and tumbled into the 500-foot-deep gorge, while the driver was negotiating a turn. The police, fire brigade, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams and local trekkers were involved in the operation to pull out the bodies from the accident spot, a senior police official said.

Those involved in the operation came across difficulties in retrieving the bodies as the gorge was over 500 feet deep and located off a slippery road, he added.

They had initially managed to trace 14 bodies, but it took nearly six hours to pull out the other bodies because of the difficult terrain, which was surrounded by dense vegetation, the official said.