Car catches fire after hitting bus, 1 dead

A man was burnt to death when his car caught fire after hitting a CNG bus from behind on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway on Sunday night. 

The impact of the collision was such that the CNG gas cylinder of the bus caught fire which spread to the car leaving the driver of the car charred to death. The deceased has been identified as Deepak Upadhyay who was a civil engineer and hailed from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. Deepak was working in a company in Noida Sector 150 and was living in Delta-1st Greater Noida. 

According to an eyewitness, the Santro car was coming from Noida and was going towards Greater Noida. 

“The bus driver stopped the bus to deboard passengers. The car hit the bus from behind triggering the fire in the bus. There was no passenger in the bus at that time. The driver of the car tried to get out of the vehicle but the door did not open. We tried to help but the fire spread rapidly, charring the driver along with the car;” said the eyewitness.

“The incident occurred at around 10 pm near Pari Chowk, Greater Noida. The bus driver stopped the bus to deboard passengers. A Hyundai Santro car coming from behind, hit the bus leading to the fire and both the vehicles went up in flames on the Expressway. The driver of the car was fully burnt and died on the spot,” said Manish Sharma, SHO, Knowledge Park Police Station. 

“Deepak was returning from office with his brother. The brother somehow managed to get out from the car but Deepak couldn’t. Both the vehicles were fully burnt. The car was petrol -driven which made it instantly catch fire. 

There was no reports of any casualty to any person in the bus. Both the vehicles were burnt before the fire officials and local police reached the spot. The cause of fire was the intensity of the collision. The body has been sent for postmortem to a local hospital,” added Sharma. 

The bus was CNG driven and belonged to Noida Depot. There have been several cases of vehicles burning due to CNG as it is a highly compressed gas and catches fire easily on collision or leakage.