Mathura expressway tragedy leaves behind mangled remains to sort, children who look for mother

Mathura, Dec 16 (PTI) Her bus on fire, Parvati's motherly instinct told her to dangle her two children out of a broken window to save their lives first, even if it meant catching a shard of glass in her neck and collapsing bleeding.

Her brother-in-law, Gulzari, still looks for her in hospitals, where mangled remains of the deceased streamed in in ambulances, thrust in black polybags.

A pile-up of eight buses and three smaller vehicles on the Agra-to-Noida side of the Yamuna Expressway sparked an inferno early Tuesday, leading to the death of 13 people and the wounding of over two dozen.

Gulzari, who spoke to reporters outside a post-mortem house in Mathura, said he was told by Parvati's children -- Prachi and Sunny -- that their mother collapsed inside the bus after she helped them get out. She is yet to be found.

Police said all 13 died of burns, and it was hard to identify most of the bodies, which were collected in charred remnants.

Senior Superintendent of Police Shlok Kumar said the biological remains will be matched with the DNA of people who are coming looking for their kin.

District Magistrate Chandra Prakash Singh said arrangements are being made for the last rites of those whose bodies have been identified.

Some of the locals said that the sound of the collision travelled up to villages kilometres away, breaking the morning calm on a crashing note.

Bellows leapt up high in the air and could be seen from miles away.

Dense fog made the rescue job difficult and lent little to no visibility to the responders.

Charred, mangled shells of buses and vehicles stood witness to the tragedy, as rescuers milled about to collect the bodies, or what was left of them. PTI COR NAV VN VN