Bus with 50 college students falls into lake in Karnataka; at least 8 killed

Mangalore: At least eight people were killed as a bus carrying 50 passengers, most of them school and college students, fell into a lake in Karnataka today. Around 40 of them were rescued by police and locals.

The accident happened around 10 am when the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus, travelling from Sakleshpor near Mangalore to Belur in Hassan district, plunged into the Vishwasamudra Lake. Belur is nearly 200 kms away from Bangalore, the state capital.

While the exact cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained, the state Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy Reddy has said there were two theories doing the round - one that the bus skidded off the road as the driver tried to avoid hitting a vehicle and the other that the axle of the bus got snapped.

The driver and the conductor of the bus survived the mishap. Eleven of those recued have been admitted to a local hospital; two of them are said to be critical.