Markapuram Bus Fire: 14 Killed as Bus Hits Tipper Near Rayavaram; Owner and Unlicensed Driver Arrested

What happened

Early on Thursday, 26 March 2026, a private Harikrishna Travels sleeper bus collided with a tipper truck on a curve near Rayavaram village, outside Markapur town in Andhra Pradesh’s Markapuram district, and both vehicles caught fire. Fourteen passengers were burnt to death. The bus had left Jagtial in Telangana on the evening of 25 March, picking up passengers along the way, many of them construction workers and their families going home for Sri Rama Navami.

Reports give the time as anywhere between 5.30 a.m. and 6.30 a.m. Deccan Chronicle, quoting the police case, put it at about 5.40 a.m. on NH-565, at a sharp downhill curve near the Palakala quarry area and an under-construction medical college. The tipper was coming the other way loaded with gravel. According to police and fire officials, the bus swerved to the right instead of the left and hit the tipper’s diesel tank. The diesel spilled and caught fire, and flames spread through the bus within minutes.

Many passengers were asleep in their berths. Some in the front broke the windows and jumped out. Those at the back could not get out. Officials quoted by IANS said the emergency exit door helped about 20 passengers escape, and that flammable material inside the bus helped the fire spread quickly.

The people

The Markapuram police first put the toll at 14. A release from the Chief Minister’s Office on 26 March gave 13 deaths, and so did several early reports, including All India Radio. The Wire reported that ten people died on the spot and three more in hospital that day. The bodies were too badly burnt to be recognised, so forensic experts matched them with blood relatives through DNA. On 28 March, police handed over 14 bodies to their families at the government hospital in Markapuram, according to PTI and Deccan Chronicle. Deccan Chronicle reported that eight men and six women died, including two children. Fourteen is the final toll we could find; we found no report of a later death.

Deccan Chronicle named the dead as Tammisetty Pitchamma (80), Tammisetty Rukmini, Uppu Ramadevi, Ambati Anil (27), his five-month-old baby, Muttangi Venkateswarlu (45), Bandaru Padma, Narsing Prabhavathi (36), her six-year-old daughter Chaitra, Podili Mahendra, Kathi Jayaramulu, Devendla Ramaiah, Atmakuri Chinna (45) and Chilakapati Venkatesh. Spellings and ages differ between outlets. Most were from the Kanigiri, Pamuru and Vinjamuru areas; The Wire said two were from Raikal near Jagtial. The Hans India reported that Uppu Ramadevi pushed her son Manohar out of the burning bus and could not get out herself, and that Rukmini was five months pregnant.

The number of injured changed from report to report: 22 in the Chief Minister’s Office release, 23 according to the SP, 25 according to the District Collector as reported by The Hindu, and 28 or 29 in later police-based reports. The most critical patients were moved to Ongole for treatment.

Response and investigation

Police, fire tenders and highway teams reached the spot, and control rooms were set up at Markapuram and Nellore for families. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu ordered a full inquiry and announced ₹5 lakh for the family of each person who died and ₹2 lakh for each seriously injured passenger. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced ₹2 lakh from the PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased and ₹50,000 for each injured person.

A case (Crime No. 22/2026) was registered at Markapuram Rural police station. The bus driver told police the steering had jammed. On 28 March, SP V Harshavardhan Raju told PTI that technical experts had found no steering malfunction, that the bus had gone into the wrong lane, and that it had stopped four times on the way because of mechanical problems, including an hour-long halt at Yerragondapalem. Passengers had complained about the stops and about rash driving.

On 1 April 2026 police arrested the bus owner and the driver. DSP U Nagaraju said the driver, a cleaner, had no valid driving licence and that the owner had kept him on to save on a licensed driver’s salary. Police said the owner first claimed he had been driving himself, until CCTV footage showed otherwise. Most outlets named the owner as Harikrishna Reddy and the driver as Yuvaraj; Deccan Chronicle named them as Pappana Haribabu alias Hari Krishna and Pandem Yuvaraju, 21. Deccan Chronicle reported that they were booked under sections 105, 125(a) and 125(b) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Police said the second-hand bus was in poor condition and the owner knew it.

The bus (AR 20 D 0487) was registered in Arunachal Pradesh. ETV Bharat reported that it was first registered in Lakshadweep in 2017 as a 41-seater, converted into a sleeper coach in 2024 and re-registered in Arunachal Pradesh, with a fitness certificate valid until December 2026. On the day of the crash, Transport Commissioner Manish Kumar Sinha said the bus documents were in order. ETV Bharat reported that officials were questioning whether the bus had really been taken to Arunachal Pradesh for its physical fitness inspection.

Why this matters

This was the second private-bus fire in Andhra Pradesh in five months. In October 2025, 19 passengers died when a sleeper bus caught fire near Chinna Tekuru in Kurnool district. Both times, people were asleep in berths, the fire spread faster than they could get out, and questions followed about where the bus was registered and whether it was fit to run.

Two things went wrong long before the crash. A bus that had broken down again and again through the night was kept on the road, and it was being driven by a man police say had no licence. MoRTH’s Road Accidents in India 2023 report counted 33,827 road accidents that year involving drivers without a valid licence, and 9,432 deaths from driving on the wrong side or lane indiscipline. Andhra Pradesh recorded 8,137 road deaths in 2023.

Lessons for passengers, operators and authorities

• Find the exits before you sleep. When you board a sleeper bus, look for the emergency door and the hammer near the windows. Keep your shoes and phone where you can grab them in the dark.
• If the bus keeps breaking down, get off at a town. A bus that has stopped three or four times with engine trouble should not carry on through the night. Ask the operator for another bus, or call 112.
• Speak up about rash driving. If the driver is speeding or cutting across the lane on curves, ask the conductor to slow down. If nothing changes, call 112 with the bus number.
• Operators must put licensed drivers at the wheel. Saving on salary by letting a cleaner drive is a crime, and insurance claims can also run into trouble when the driver has no licence.
• Fitness checks must be real. Buses registered in another state and converted into sleepers need a physical inspection, not paperwork done from a distance.
• For burns: Cool the burn under cool, clean running water for 20 minutes. Even 10 minutes helps if that’s all you can manage. No ice, toothpaste, oil or butter. Then get the person to hospital.

What is still not known

We searched English and Telugu reports up to 16 October 2026. We could not find the report of the inquiry the Chief Minister ordered, a chargesheet, the bail status of the two accused, any action by the transport department against the operator’s permit, or any finding on whether the fitness certificate was properly issued. We also could not confirm whether the announced compensation has been paid. Reports still differ on the exact time, the number of passengers (35 to 44), the number injured and the bus’s final destination (Kaligiri, Kanigiri, Pamuru or Vinjamuru). We will update this page when official findings are published.