Tandur, a small town in Telangana’s Vikarabad district, about 50 kilometres from Hyderabad, was not ready for what would unfold on a busy Monday morning. Around 7.30 am, residents woke up to the news of 19 deaths in a bus accident on the Chevella-Bijapur highway, on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

A truck carrying gravel had a head-on collision with a Telangana Road Transport Corporation bus on what is popularly called Mirzaguda-Khanapur road in Hyderabad ’s neighbouring Ranga Reddy district, which also neighbours Vikarabad district, killing 19 people, including 10 women and a three-month-old baby girl.

About 16 people among those who died were natives of Tandur. “I have lost three daughters. I don’t know how I will survive this,” said Yellaiah Goud of Tandur, whose wife, Ambika, cried her

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