The school transport coordinator for Kedarpur had called him back at seven-oh-five and said that the morning bus had already departed — left the junction at seven AM, which was before the updated alert had gone out, because the alert had gone out at six-fifty and the bus had left at seven and the coordinator's phone had been engaged when the first attempt to reach him was made. The bus had a radio — the buses in the district were supposed to have radios. The coordinator would try to reach it.
At seven-thirty the coordinator had called back. The bus radio wasn't responding. This was not immediately alarming — mountain radios had dead zones on every route, the gorge roads were specifically difficult for radio propagation because the gorge walls blocked line-of-sight to the base station. The bus was probably in a dead zone.
At seven-forty-two, Sanjay had received the first transmission.
He heard it himself because he was at the base station monitoring the emergency channel, which he always did in alert conditions. It had come through broken — distance and terrain, the signal fragmenting over the gorge geography — but he had caught enough. School bus. Gorge road. Kilometer fourteen approximately. Children. Unconscious driver.
He had pressed transmit immediately. "School bus on gorge road, this is Rudraprayag District Disaster Management, please repeat your position and status." He had pressed and released and listened. Static. "School bus, please repeat. We have received your transmission. Please confirm position and number of persons."
Nothing came back. The hand radio on the other end — if that's what it was — was either out of range or on a different cycle or had battery issues. He had the fragments he had received and nothing more.
He turned to his assistant Parveen. "Get me everything we have on the Kedarpur school route. The gorge road. Every landmark, every kilometer mark, every possible shelter point. And get the helicopter on standby — I need to know if we can put a bird over the gorge in these weather conditions." He looked at the screen that showed the rainfall radar. "And get me the roads department — I need to know exactly what the road condition is at kilometer fourteen."
