Mumbai
Thirty-three passengers, mostly teaching staff belonging to the Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth Agricultural University at Dapoli near Mumbai, died while the bus they were travelling in plunged into 500-feet deep gorge this afternoon, according to the state police.

The lone survivor, identified as Prakash Rajaram Sawant-Desai, who fell out of the bus during its plunge was entangled on a tree for a while before he climbed out on to the road above and sought help from the local people. Police said the mishap happened at the Ambenali ghat area in Poladpur in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. The group was travelling to the Mahableshwar hill station.

According to the Raigad district police, the local villagers were unaware of the bus plunging into the gorge till Sawant-Desai alerted them as heavy rains and the thick vegetation in the mountainous ghat section rendered visibility very low. Police personnel who tried to reach the victims found it difficult to climb down the steep rocky
gorge and summoned the help of trekkers.

The lone survivor, who received minor injuries in the mishap, told police that the driver of the vehicle was momentarily distracted and took his eyes off the road while negotiating a sharp bend. The bus veered out of control and before anyone knew it was plunging down an abyss, Sawant-Desai told police.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a message on Twitter that teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been despatched to the area and efforts were on to retrieve the bodies of the dead.

Later in the afternoon Superintendent of Police Anil Paraskar said continuing heavy rains made it difficult for rescue workers to reach the bodies trapped in the debris of the vehicle.