More than forty-five passengers had a miraculous escape after a private air-conditioned sleeper bus traveling from Gorakhpur to Surat caught fire and was reduced to ashes on the Purvanchal Expressway near Lucknow.
The incident occurred near the Gosainganj toll plaza when the driver detected pungent smoke emanating from the rear engine compartment and promptly pulled the double-decker passenger coach onto the highway shoulder. Acting with remarkable presence of mind, the driver and bus conductors opened the emergency exits and shouted alarms, waking sleeping passengers and assisting them to rapidly evacuate the vehicle onto the expressway embankment.
Within minutes of evacuation, fierce flames rapidly engulfed the entire passenger cabin, fueled by combustible interior upholstery and diesel fuel lines. Fire tenders from the regional fire station and expressway emergency response units arrived promptly, deploying high-pressure foam cannons to extinguish the raging inferno before it could spread to adjacent roadside vegetation.
While all travelers escaped without physical injury, luggage, travel documents, and personal belongings stored inside the vehicle’s cargo bays were completely destroyed by the blaze. Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation and expressway authority officials arrived on site with relief vehicles, providing drinking water and arranging alternate buses to transport the stranded travelers onward to Surat.
Regional transport officers commenced formal inspections of the charred bus chassis to verify whether statutory automated fire detection and suppression systems had been installed in the engine bay in accordance with national safety norms. Authorities issued advisories to long-distance inter-state bus operators to conduct rigorous electrical harness inspections before undertaking cross-country journeys.
Fire department technical inspectors launched an investigation into the cause of the blaze, with preliminary assessments indicating that an electrical short circuit in the air conditioning compressor sparked the fire.
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Sources:
https://www.aajtak.in/breakingnews/story/latest-breaking-news-in-hindi-6-september-2026-ntc-rmxk-2637227-2026-09-06