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A driver and cleaner who survived a spectacular bus crash and fled before it exploded in a ball of flames, killing 45 passengers as they slept, have been arrested.
Only three other people on the vehicle escaped the inferno off a southern India highway early yesterday. The driver and the cleaner broke windows and fled before the fuel tank exploded, police said.
The other passengers were locked inside the bus, which had an automatic locking system that could only be controlled by the driver, a local police official said.
The dead included a child. "The driver was speeding at about 120 to 130 [km/h]," Senior district administrative official L Sarman said. "He was driving all night. It seems he may have fallen asleep at the wheel."

The bus, travelling overnight from Bangalore to Hyderabad, was passing another vehicle when it crashed into a roadside barrier in Mahabubnagar in Andhra Pradesh at about 5am, police official Naveen Kumar Chand said. The diesel tank then caught fire, and flames engulfed the bus.
The victims included a baby, a couple celebrating their 23rd wedding anniversary and several software engineers returning home to Hyderabad from jobs in Bangalore to celebrate the Diwali festival on Sunday.
The death toll was high even by the grisly standards of India, where bus crashes are common, particularly on the treacherous roads of the northern Himalayas.
Police said the driver and cleaner had tried to flee the scene of the accident. They "tried to run, but the police caught them", a local police spokesman said.
Relatives of the victims screamed and broke down in tears outside the office of the vehicle operator in Hyderabad, 140 kilometres from the crash site. Police later charged the bus operator Jabbar Travels, which offers buses to cities across the south of India, with negligence. The bus was carrying 50 people, seven more than its capacity.
Television pictures showed flames leaping out of the vehicle, which was gutted by the time firefighters arrived. The survivors were being treated in a nearby hospital in Wanaparthy.
Only three of the 45 charred bodies could be identified. DNA tests would be used to formally identify the rest, Information Minister DK Aruna said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed "sorrow over the loss of lives in the bus accident".
About 140,000 people died in road accidents in India last year, according to the government's National Crime Records Bureau, which works out to 16 an hour. Bad roads, speeding vehicles and poor driving are among the contributing factors.
Commercial drivers are largely unregulated, meaning many work long hours overnight, which raises the danger of them falling asleep at the wheel, campaigners say.
In May at least 33 people died when an overcrowded bus skidded off a road into a fast-flowing river in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
At least 30 were killed this month in Assam when a heavy goods truck careered on to the wrong side of the road and smashed head-on into two packed vehicles.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


Driver and cleaner arrested after fiery bus crash kills 45 in southern India

A still from TV of the burning bus. Photo: SCMP

The fuel tank of the bus exploded after the crash, killing 45 passengers as they slept. Photo: Xinhua

A relative of a passenger waits outside the office of private bus operator Jabbar Travels in Hyderabad. Photo: AP

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Driver and a cleaner fled before vehicle exploded in flames, without deactivating automatic locks that trapped most passengers inside


A driver and cleaner who survived a spectacular bus crash and fled before it exploded in a ball of flames, killing 45 passengers as they slept, have been arrested.


Driver and cleaner arrested after fiery bus crash kills 45 in southern India

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Driver and a cleaner fled before vehicle exploded in flames, without deactivating automatic locks that trapped most passengers inside

Driver and a cleaner fled before vehicle exploded in flames, without deactivating automatic locks that trapped most passengers inside