At least 54 killed as tourist bus plunges into 1300-ft ravine in Brazil

#joinville #busplunge #santacatarinastate #brazil It was a tragedy of no mean proportions as a tourist bus plunged into a 1300-ft ravine in Brazil killing at least 54 people as reported in news.sky.com dated 15 March 2015.
The bus was carrying evangelical Christians and the accident occurred when the driver failed to negotiate a curve and lost control on a bend. Rescue operations are on as rescue teams are searching for bodies at the crash site in a mountainous area of Santa Catarina state.
The bus was believed to be on its way to a religious event in Parana state when it crashed six miles from the city of Joinville.
As per witnesses, the driver appeared to have lost control, and the police have said that preliminary indications were of brake failure. The weather and road conditions cannot be blamed because both were good at the time of the crash. The dead bodies recovered so far include eight children, 24 women and 14 men while ten people have sustained severe injuries and have been shifted to hospitals.
Incidentally, nearly 43,000 Brazilians are killed every year in road accidents and, for the decade from 2002-2012, the accident rate surged by over 24%. It seems with the economy growing and the population topping 200 million, nearly 10,000 new cars are added daily to Brazil's roads.

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Trip to Hyderabad – Golconda Fort, Hussainsagar Lake

It was in August 1998 that I had an opportunity to visit Hyderabad. It was a brief visit on duty and I managed to squeeze a trip to the city to take in the sights. I have this tendency to look around and experience the joys of landing up in a new place, I always do this whenever I go to any new city and Hyderabad was no exception.
My duty schedule was tight and on the first evening I set out to book a ticket in the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation tourist bus for the city sightseeing trip. The trip would start at 7am and would be over by 5pm – and in order to reach the pick-up point, I had to leave the Guest House real early. Fortunately, I managed to get auto rickshaw and, by paying a bit extra, I reached the pick-up point in time to take in a hurried breakfast of idli sambhar – the size of the idlis were large and the breakfast was satisfying.
The tour schedule was good and I watched in fascination the enormous statue of Lord Buddha that is installed in the middle of the Hussainsagar Lake. This statue is carved out of a single piece of white rock and had been installed in 1992 and weighs 350-tonnes. It is a marvel of craftsmanship and engineering.
While passing through the city, our bus passed the Char Minar - a landmark of the city of Hyderabad.
Another landmark of Hyderabad was the Salar Jung museum – it has thousands of artefacts and items of the past eras and the best one was a marble statue of a girl with wet clothes – the folds of the dress were exquisitely created to give am impression of being the real stuff.
Of course, the attraction of this museum was the ancient clock that beat the hour – a tiny figure would emerge from the clock and, at the hour, would beat a bell and return to its hiding place. People wait eagerly to catch this unique scene. The visit to the Golconda Fort was an out of the way experience – the massive structures that had been built nearly 800 years ago are examples of the extent of expertise the old-timers had and also are proof of their knowledge of engineering.
I wanted to visit the Ramoji Film City but that was a separate kettle of fish because it was not possible to wedge it in between the regular tour package. It would need another whole day and, unfortunately, such a day has yet to come for me.