The situation of at least 50 passengers in two buses that went missing in the Trishuli river after being swept away by a landslide on Friday in Simaltal, 22 km northeast of Narayangadh Bazar on the road to Muglin, is still unknown. Three passengers of one of the two buses that were swept away by the landslide jumped out and saved their lives.

In the accident at Simaltal in Bharatpur Metropolitan City-29, the complete details of how many passengers were on both buses and where they were from have not been made public. Bagmati Pradesh bus No. 03-006 Bh 1516 going from Birgunj to Kathmandu and Ganapati Deluxe bus No. 03-001 Bh 2495 going from Kathmandu to Rautathat headquarter were washed away by the landslide and taken to the Trishuli River. 

Chitwan Chief District Officer (CDO) Indradev Yadav said that despite the information that there were 24 people in the Angel Transport bus, only 17 passengers' names and addresses were received and despite the information that there were 30 people riding in the Ganpati Transport bus, only 26 passengers' names and addresses were received. The three passengers who managed to survive safely by jumping belong to the bus of Ganapati Transport. The driver of another bus, who saw the incident of two buses swept away by the landslide, called the police hotline number 100. According to the CDO, it was 4:15 am when the information was received. After the incident, the police team was mobilized, but the Nepali Army and armed police team including divers were involved in the search only after 8 o'clock.

70 people including 12 divers of the Armed Police and 55 people including 5 divers of the Nepali Army were engaged in searching for the missing passengers. But due to the flood in Trishuli river and the flow of water being very strong, the divers have not been able to identify the place where the bus sank.

SP Janak Puri of the Disaster Management Training School of Armed Police Force Chitwan Kurintar said that although the team with divers searched the water with bamboo and rods, they could not find any sign of the bus. The rescue has been suspended at 7:00 p.m. on Friday to resume on Saturday. During the rescue, a window curtain of the bus and a baby's bed were found.

Narayangadh-Muglin road widening to two lanes started in April 2072 and the road expansion work was completed in winter 2075. Small landslides are happening here every year due to road upgrading works. On the night of June 8, 2074, a landslide swept away the van of the local police office, Muglin, at Kalikhola on the Narayangadh-Muglin road. The bodies of the sub-inspector and one jawan in the van were found, but two jawans were missing. Two SLR weapons were also not found.

According to the Bharatpur Division Road Office, the road was blocked by a landslide on the morning of June 8 at the place where the landslide occurred on Friday. According to the then Narayangadh-Muglin road project, it was said that the risk of landslides increased in 29 places with the expansion of the road. Although there are landslide control works in those places, landslides have been blocking the road every year in places like Kalikhola, Topekhol, Tuin Khola. Landslides have started in Simaltal for the first time this year.

Lalu Prasad Paudel, Head of the Central Department of Geology of Tribhuvan University, said that the landslide happened because the road was widened without studying the risk of landslides during the upgrading of the Muglin-Narayangadh road section. Upgradation of the road section was started from April 20, 2015. Speaking to Kantipur on June 20, 2075, Shiv Khanal, the then information officer of the Naraigarh-Muglin road extension project, said, 'The problem was due to the design, at the beginning, the design cost a lot, and then the construction was started by removing many things.' Information from Adhikari Khanal also confirms the risk of landslides. Paudel says, 'This incident is the result of the way the work of cutting the foot of the hill to widen the road was done without study. Such works have been done on several roads in the country. He said that the practice of working without studying the geology of the adjacent mountains during road construction or expansion has increased such incidents.

Three passengers survived this way 

Jugeshwar Rai Yadav of Garuwa Municipality-9 of Rautahat, Nandan Das of Gonahi Municipality-1 of Rautahat and Saroj Gupta of Rautahat are the passengers who managed to survive by jumping from the bus of Ganapati Transport going to Gaur from Kathmandu. Out of the three, Gupta has been 'discharged' after general treatment at the government hospital in Bharatpur, while the remaining two are being treated at the teaching hospital of Chitwan Medical College in Bharatpur.

Jugeshwar, who was returning home from Kathmandu after his children's treatment, was on the bus with his one daughter, one grandson, one granddaughter and 10-year-old son. He says, "Now I am here in the hospital, everyone else fell in the same bus." He said that when he was coming towards Simaltal, when he got the news of a landslide, he stopped immediately and was told that the landslide had cleared. Just ate five balls and went into the water. I somehow swam to the top of the road.