Gurugram School Bus Rescue: Children Stranded for Hours in Waterlogged Streets
Gurugram, August 16: A rainy Monday morning turned into a harrowing ordeal for parents and school children after several buses were stranded on waterlogged roads for nearly four hours. The heavy downpour submerged vehicle tyres, leaving students with no option but to remain inside the buses until rescue teams arrived.
The incident occurred near Subhash Chowk, where a series of school buses broke down one after another in the flooded stretch. Speaking to NDTV, Achyut Mohan Sharma, father of one of the students, recounted the tense hours. "We spoke to the school transport department. They arranged for alternate buses because one after the other, each bus broke down on that particular patch. Now, even the other buses couldn't reach. So finally, the authorities brought in a crane, and with that, they pushed the bus ahead to a certain point. The children and those present inside were then shifted to another bus," he said.
Mr. Sharma described the immediate reaction of parents as one of deep anxiety. "As the bus broke down near Subhash Chowk, the teachers informed us through a WhatsApp broadcast group. Our immediate reaction was panic. We wanted to understand where our children were... both my wife and I were frantically trying to reach out to authorities and other parents to see if one of us could reach the location earlier than the other," he said.
Despite his attempts to reach the spot, the usually 20-minute journey took him about 50 minutes. "It was raining quite heavily, and because of the conundrum, the roads were flooded, and due to the domino effect, there was a traffic jam on the road, so I couldn't reach in time," he explained. Another parent who was closer also faced delays, taking 40-45 minutes to cover a 15-20 minute route. That parent eventually parked the car and waded through knee-deep water to reach the bus.
Inside the vehicle, conditions were challenging. "We were all terrified. There were potholes, there was risk of electrocution with the electric poles around. We all decided that the best course of action was for everyone to stay on the bus and have either the authorities or the school figure something out. It's safer to be on the bus, stranded, than make an exit," Mr. Sharma said. His son managed to stay calm, but several other children were crying. "Initially there was panic, but once we were able to speak to him over the phone via the teacher, he was okay. Eventually, he started feeling adventurous, but there were other children we could hear crying in the background. Some were hungry, obviously. It was lunchtime. The more tricky piece was the washroom... with both genders on the bus, it was tricky for them to figure out how to go to the washroom during this time," he said.
The father asserted that such situations should not recur, calling for better civic infrastructure. "With the amount of brain power and the money that we have as India, as Gurugram, we need to do better in terms of the civic facilities, the drainage systems. If the school and the parents can do this much to be able to reach the children and extract them from the situation, I think our bureaucracy and our systems should be able to implement measures so that something like this does not happen again. We owe it to our children and the rest of the ecosystem," he said.
The rescue operation concluded with the help of cranes, and all children were safely transferred to alternate buses. The incident highlights the recurring problem of waterlogging in the city during the monsoon season, raising questions about urban planning and disaster preparedness.
