KULLU: Sheer luck and a few bars of metal saved two children in the landslide that hit a passenger bus in Bilaspur on Tuesday evening.Siblings Aarushi, 10 and Shaurya, 8, escaped because they had moved to the rear seat of the half-empty bus to play just minutes before the hillside came crashing down.The landslide struck the front portion of the bus first, and the impact hurled them under the seats, which shielded them from debris that rained down a fraction of a second later.The brother and sister are the lone survivors of the tragedy. They lost their mother, aunt and two cousins in the accident. It was Shaurya who lit the funeral pyres on Tuesday.According to some local residents who are close to the family, Aayushi and Shaurya were getting bored as sunset fell and there was nothing to look out of the window to. The entire rear bench of the 42-seat bus was vacant and they moved there to play.Barely 5 minutes later, when the bus was near Barthin village in landslide-prone Ballu Ghat, an 80-metre stretch of vertical land mass. Boulders and all, came crashing down on the vehicle.“The landslide debris did the maximum damage to the front portion of the bus where most passengers were sitting. As the kids were in the back and under the seats, they escaped being completely trapped by the debris and survived. They were found under two different seats. It’s nothing short of a miracle,” said Hans Raj, a resident of Fagog village and ward member of Baloh panchayat where the tragedy happened.“We heard a loud bang when the landslide hit the bus. At the site, it was a horrible scene. It was so horrific that I can never forget. The entire bus with its passengers was buried in the loose debris of the landslide. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw two dust-covered kids alive,” added Hans Raj.Lakhbir, who runs a poultry farm nearby, was the first one to run to the spot. “I heard loud screams coming out of the debris. It must have been the little kids. As I reached the spot, others also rushed in and started calling the police and all. It was a heart-wrenching sight,” said Lakhbir.Within a few minutes, a large crowd gathered, and the locals themselves started removing the debris. A JCB arrived after a while. There were loud cheers and sighs of relief from the crowd as first Aayushi and then Shaurya were rescued from the debris. Sixteen others perished, some crushed to death by boulders where they sat.“Aayushi suffered minor injuries to her legs, and Shaurya came out unscathed. Both were immediately admitted to AIIMS-Bilaspur. We have never seen anything so tragic and so miraculous at the same time,” said Sangeeta Devi, pradhan of Baloh panchayat.Among those who died were Aayushi and Shaurya’s mother Kamlesh, 36, aunt Anjna, 29, and cousins Naksh, 7, and Aarav, 4. They were returning to Fagog after attending a family function in a nearby village, Gangloh. Kamlesh’s husband, Raj Kumar, who works in a private firm, and Anjna’s husband, Vipin, who is in the Army, were not home at the time of the incident. A third kid, eight-year-old Rahul, from Barsar in Hamirpur, also died in the tragic incident.The brother and sister were discharged from AIIMS on Wednesday, and later that day, Shaurya lit the four funeral pyres.
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