(From top) The bus being pulled out of the canal; Mamata Baraiya, a survivor, at a hospital in Bodeli; books of school children recovered from the bus. (PTI, AP)

April 16: A state government bus carrying children to their schools for an exam careened over a bridge and fell into the Narmada canal this morning, killing at least 41 students and three others.

Unofficial sources said around 60 students were in the bus which plunged into the 60-foot deep canal near Bodeli, 70km east of Vadodara, around 6.30am. The driver, conductor and an elderly lady also drowned in the swollen canal, which is fed by the contentious Sardar Sarovar Dam.

The toll could have been higher but for an alert driver of a truck that the bus was trying to overtake. He threw a rope into the canal in the hope that some of the passengers would be able to cling on. Four students did manage to get to the rope and swim to safety.

The accident, among the worst this year, is reminiscent of the mishap in Calcutta a week ago when 21 people similarly drowned in a canal off VIP Road when a speeding private bus skidded and fell.

One of the students who survived today’s accident said the driver lost control while trying to overtake the truck. The bus swerved, crashed into the concrete wall of the bridge and fell into the canal, which was filled up to 4.6 metres due to which the vehicle was submerged. Local people who jumped in took a while locating it, which, they say, used up crucial time.

Sardar Sarovar Project authorities immediately stopped supply of water to the canal and brought the level down to 2.6 metres to help rescue work.

More time was wasted as the state transport depot at Bodeli said they had no rescue infrastructure in place. It was left to a local councillor to arrange three cranes, which were used to pull out the bus. Inside were the bodies of the driver, conductor and 13 children. By the time the fire brigade team could arrive from Vadodara, the villagers had fished out 44 bodies. Of the students who died, 31 were girls.

Most of the children were from Moti Barnoli and Patana villages and were studying at H.H. Shiroliwal, Navjivan and Ma Bhagwati schools in Bodeli.

The four students who swam to safety were all from Navjivan: Rahul (13), Sunil (13), Alpesh (14) and Mamta (13). But Alpesh’s sister, a year younger, drowned.

Alpesh, a Class IX student who was to write his final Hindi paper, cannot remember how the accident happened.

“Suddenly I found myself under water. I broke open the windowpane and fractured my hand. I saw a rope hanging and held on to it. Since I knew swimming, I could easily come out of the canal,” he said.

Vadodara superintendent of police (rural) Amit Viswhakarama said though divers were still scanning the canal to search for missing persons, the possibility of finding any more bodies appeared remote.

While local people claimed 60 students were on board, district collector Vijay Nehra said enquiries made with villages along the bus route had confirmed that only 48 people were in the bus.

Gujarat home minister Amit Shah said the families who lost their children would get Rs 1.5 lakh: Rs 1 lakh from the government and another Rs 50,000 from an insurance company. All students of Gujarat government schools are insured.