Mangalore: A 'Jumbo' Traffic Jam and a Bus Accident
Report and pics by Lancy Vaz
for Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (MB)
Mangalore, Aug 24: Thursday, August 23 evening witnessed a huge traffic jam at Kuntikan, where the Bijai-Derebail-Kavoor road and the NH 17 intersect.
The traffic snarls are common, but more mischief was added by an elephant ridden by a mahout around dusk. Besides, it had a pretty good load of 'green fuel' on its back to take care of its tummy for a day maybe, which was blocking the view of the drivers from the oncoming vehicles. The honking by the vehicles behind and impatient responses from them notwithstanding, the pachyderm would not deviate from neither its set track nor its royal gait. The mahout too might have been feeling self-important.
But after contributing enough to the congestion, it was taken off the road through a muddy by-lane by its navigator. But that did not help the traffic situation in any way.
If that was the situation until late in the evening, further trouble was caused by a KSRTC bus which went beyond the driver's control around 9 pm at the same spot and landed into a gorge. Luckily it was not deep and the driver escaped unhurt. There were no passengers in the bus, apparently because it was returning to the bus depot after the scheduled trips for the day.
But enough people gathered on the spot, besides drivers of the vehicles passing by stopping over or slowing down to have a look at the 'state of affairs', which further added to the traffic congestion.
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