“Chevella Bus Tragedy: 19 Dead as Tipper Truck Collides with TSRTC Bus near Hyderabad”

Hyderabad, November 3: There’s no sound on that road now. Just the smell of diesel and dust. Hours ago, before sunrise, a TSRTC bus from Tandur rolled down the highway toward Hyderabad. By mid-morning, it was a heap of twisted metal at Mirzaguda, on the edge of Chevella. Nineteen people are gone. Others are in hospital beds, not yet out of danger.

The bus left Tandur a little after five. Regular trip. People half-asleep, some on phones, some with breakfast boxes. It reached Vikarabad, then Chevella, around six. That’s when everything slipped. A gravel-filled tipper truck came from the opposite direction, probably trying to overtake another lorry. The two vehicles met head-on. The gravel poured in. Passengers were buried where they sat.

“It looked like the bus had sunk into the road,” said Ravi, a farmhand who ran from his field when he heard the crash. “You couldn’t tell where the truck ended and the bus began.”

What They Found There

Police, locals, and fire teams clawed through gravel with shovels, bare hands, anything. A JCB came later. People shouted names into the wreckage, hoping someone might answer. A few did.

By eight, ambulances had started ferrying survivors to Osmania and Gandhi hospitals in Hyderabad. The count kept changing first 15, then 17, now 19 confirmed dead. Nobody’s sure if the number will stop there. Around 70 people had boarded that bus at Tandur.

Three Sisters

All from Tandur Nandini, Sai Priya, and Tanusha. Students, still in their early twenties. They studied in Hyderabad and commuted every week. Their mother told them not to leave so early. “It’s too dark,” she said, but they had college at nine. They left anyway.

By noon, their photographs were circulating online. Friends came to the hospital carrying exam notes and ID cards, still trying to believe it wasn’t them.

Another passenger, Akhila Reddy, from Lakshminarayanapur, also died. She worked in the city. Missed her regular bus, took this one instead. Fate, if you believe in it, was merciless this morning.

The Blame

Officials think it’s overspeeding. Maybe fatigue. The tipper driver survived with minor injuries and is in custody. Police say there were no skid marks, meaning he didn’t brake. The bus driver died on the spot.

According to Telangana Today, CCTV footage from Chevella bus stand shows the bus leaving just minutes before the crash. Everything after that is speculation, but everyone agrees the highway is a death trap.

The Transport Department has ordered a probe. The district collector called it “avoidable.” Locals call it “routine.”

A Highway Known for Death

The Hyderabad–Bijapur stretch through Chevella is lined with quarries. Before dawn, trucks filled with gravel and sand race toward the city. Drivers don’t rest; they’re paid per trip. There’s barely any lighting, and dividers disappear for long stretches.

People here say they’ve been warning the government for years. Letters, petitions, nothing moved. Every few months, there’s another crash, another promise.

“It’s not bad luck,” said Shankar, who runs a tyre shop by the road. “It’s neglect. Plain neglect.”

Last year alone, Ranga Reddy district saw 900 accidents, most involving heavy vehicles. None of them made front pages like this one.

Mourning in Tandur

By afternoon, news had spread. Shops pulled down shutters. Schools let students go early. At the Tandur bus depot, drivers stood in silence, heads bowed. Someone lit incense near the RTC counter.

At Osmania Hospital, families waited outside the mortuary. One father kept asking every official he saw if they’d found his daughter’s ring. Another man fainted when doctors confirmed his wife hadn’t survived. Volunteers handed out biscuits and water. Nobody was eating.

The government announced ₹5 lakh compensation for each victim’s family and ₹2 lakh for the injured. Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar visited the spot, promised “strict action,” and left for a review meeting. Across the border, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed “deep shock” and asked both states to strengthen safety checks. Words everyone has heard before.

Why This Keeps Happening

Every crash follows the same pattern poor roads, tired drivers, no speed control, overloaded trucks, and buses running to impossible timetables. Officials talk about “road discipline,” but on highways like this, discipline means little when profit decides the clock.

India loses more than 1.5 lakh lives on its roads each year. Telangana’s share keeps climbing. You’d think the numbers would force a reckoning. They don’t.

An old TSRTC driver watching the wreckage said quietly, “Tomorrow another bus will leave Tandur. Same time, same road. What choice do we have?”

The Night After

By the time bodies reached Tandur, it was dark again. People lined both sides of the road. Candles flickered in their hands. Someone played a slow devotional song from a speaker tied to a pole. The crowd barely breathed.

When the last ambulance passed, the lights of a city bus appeared in the distance heading to Hyderabad, on the same route. No one spoke. They just watched it go.

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Ananya Sharma

Senior Political Correspondent – Ananya@hindustanherald.in – Web

Covers Indian politics, governance, and policy developments with over a decade of experience in political reporting.

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