Same Route, Same Mistakes, Just New Victims: Kurnool Bus Inferno Rekindles 2013 Mahbubnagar Horror

New Delhi: Twenty people, including children, died on Friday near Kurnool when a Hyderabad-Bengaluru bus caught fire, gutting the vehicle within minutes. As many as 41 passengers were on board.

The tragedy is not new. It is a grim repetition of a decade-old horror. In 2013, 45 passengers died in a similar fire aboard a Jabbar Travels bus in Mahbubnagar, barely 150 kilometres away. The eerie similarity between the two incidents exposes how little has changed in intercity bus safety, despite repeated loss of life and public outrage.

The 2013 Jabbar Travels accident had laid bare shocking safety lapses: a diesel tank explosion after hitting a divider, an automatic door that locked passengers inside, no emergency exits and absence of basic firefighting systems. The case led to arrests and even implicated the manufacturer, Volvo Buses India, but the lessons seem to have evaporated with time.

Today’s Kaveri Travels fire is an echo of that negligence. Once again, the same route, the same kind of vehicle and the same outcome — a burst of flame, a race against time and bodies charred beyond recognition. What’s most damning is that the technology to prevent such tragedies already exists. A simple fire alarm, smoke detector or automatic water sprinkler could have alerted sleeping passengers and controlled the fire in its early stages.

From Jabbar to Kaveri, the script hasn’t changed—only the names of the victims have. Each time, investigations are launched, blame is distributed, and outrage fades. Until the next fire erupts on the highway, reminding us that the cost of indifference is always measured in lives.

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