A bus packed with passengers veered off Basanti Highway after being hit by a lorry, rammed into a tree and a lamp post and stopped inches before a slope that leads to a canal several feet below on Friday evening.

Six passengers of the bus, which was headed for Baburhat in South 24-Parganas, were injured. One was bleeding from the head. They were taken to Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital.

The lorry, which was plying towards the Science City crossing, plunged into the canal.

Police said the lorry lost control, crossed the central line and collided with the bus near Chowbhaga, around 3km from the Science City crossing, close to 6pm.

Under the impact of the collision, one of the front tyres of the bus came off. The vehicle veered off the road, ploughed through shrubs and rammed into a tree and a lamp post before coming to a halt inches before a slope that leads down to a canal.

Witnesses said the bus would have hurtled into the canal, at least six feet below the road level, had it not been for the shrubs, the tree and the lamp post.

The lorry, however, went out of control and fell into the canal off the flank through which the bus was travelling.

Mokshad Mistry, one of the passengers of the bus, said there was a loud sound before the bus lost control and started skidding off the road at a high speed. “Then suddenly the bus tilted and we thought we were falling. Something stopped our fall,” recounted Mistry, a resident of Deganga in North 24-Parganas.

Local people rescued the 30-odd trapped passengers through the back door.

The police said a car that was behind the bus hit it immediately after the collision. The car escaped with some minor damage on its front part and none of the occupants was injured.

One of the helpers of the lorry blamed the bus for the accident. “The truck fell into the canal after being hit by the bus,” Ravi Yadav said.

The stretch of Basanti Highway where the accident occurred does not have a divider and has several sharp bends. It has witnessed a number of accidents.

In February 2017, a Cognizant employee and the driver of the car he was in were killed in a collision with a bus near Bantala market. Dipanjan Banerjee, 27, the employee, died of multiple injuries on the way to hospital, while the driver, Santosh Singh Yadav, was killed on the spot.

Five persons were killed and three injured in February 2016, after a speeding truck lost control on Basanti Highway and crushed bystanders who had assembled at a market beside the road. The accident occurred at Paglahat, about 30km from Calcutta, around 9.30pm.

At least 25 Cognizant employees were injured in January 2015 after an air-conditioned bus ferrying them collided with a lorry on Basanti Highway.

The police have tried to improve traffic management on the stretch by erecting speed-breakers and signage but accidents keep happening, mostly because of reckless driving and engineering fault of the stretch. According to the police, the speed limit on the stretch is 50kmph, which vehicles routinely flout.

Traffic on Basanti Highway was suspended for two hours after Friday’s accident.

The truck on the Basanti Highway Picture by Gautam Bose