Villagers crowd around the bus that met with an accident at Nischindapur, Howrah, on Thursday. Picture by Amit Datta

A ramshackle, overcrowded bus with a flat tyre crashed into a tree branch and lost its wooden-framed roof before plunging into a trench, killing six passengers on Thursday morning.

The incident occurred around 10.30am at a spot 60km from Howrah railway station, where the private bus on Route E-43 was headed with over 75 passengers, most of whom were from Dehibhursut, a township in Howrah district.

The five who died at the accident site, close to Nischindapur village, were college student Papia Santra, 20, Sambhunath Nandi, 50, Sanat Bag, 63, Tarapada Bag, 38, and Santu, the conductor of the bus. A sixth passenger died in hospital. At least 42 people were injured, officials said.

Moumita Karmakar, a 24-year-old survivor, said she first heard the sound of a tyre bursting, then a bang and, suddenly, the roof over her head wasn’t there. “Then there was a splash and a moment of darkness. I must have blanked out. I then saw my friend Swapna Majhi lying unconscious and heard cries for help all around,” she told Metro.

The speeding bus (WB-11-8286) was over two decades old. The front tyre that burst appeared to have undergone repeated retreading and the frame of the roof that was hanging from a branch after the accident was made from termite-infested wood.

“The condition of most buses that ply from the rural belt to the city is precarious. We happened to board one on the wrong day,” another survivor said.

Not that buses which ply within the city are much better. The vehicle that plunged into the Bagjola canal at Keshtopur, on VIP Road, in April and killed 21 people was one of those without a certificate of roadworthiness.

On Thursday morning, Apu Adak, 22, had boarded the Howrah-bound bus at Nebutala. He was on his way to Amta to submit his elder sister’s application for the School Service Commission examination. “When I boarded the bus, there were only around 20 passengers. By the time we crossed the next three stops, there were nearly 80 people. There wasn’t a place to stand,” he recalled.

Most passengers were students and office-goers headed for Howrah station. “The driver was speeding. When some of us shouted at him to slow down, the conductor replied that the bus was 15 minutes behind schedule and had to make up for it,” Adak said.

Villagers alerted by the clang of metal when the roof of the bus hit the tree branch were the first to rush to the passengers’ rescue. Vehicles were mobilised to take the injured to various dispensaries, rural healthcare centres and small nursing homes, none of which were equipped to handle the emergency.

By evening, most of the injured had been shifted to city hospitals. Howrah district magistrate Khalil Ahmed said four of the injured were in a critical condition.