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66 drown when bus plunges into river

At least 66 people, mostly school children, are feared drowned when a bus fell 60 feet into river Padma near Jalangi in Murshidabad district on Tuesday morning.

State Home (police) Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya said that 53 bodies have been recovered so far. The search for the other passengers are continuing. Fifty bodies were found trapped inside the bus which was hauled up in the afternoon with the help of a crane.

The toll is likely to go up, warned the minister, as the river may have swept some of the bodies into the neighbouring Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has been alerted, he added.

There were about 86 students, belonging to two schools and a college, on the bus. They had left Lal Bagh in the wee hours of January 12 for a picnic in Karimpur in Nadia district.

The accident took place around 0510 hours. The driver lost control over the bus due to heavy fog.

Bhattacharya said divers from the National Thermal Power Corporation and Calcutta Port Trust have been pressed into service.

State Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty and Environment Minister Manab Mukherjee are supervising the rescue operation.

The Bangladesh rifles jawans too are conducting searches on the other side of the border.

UNI

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