The mother of a seven-year-old girl killed in a school bus accident at a Sengkang condominium in 2024 said she cries every day, remembering her daughter as a kind, compassionate and loving girl who could light up a room with her smile.<\/p>\n
She was speaking to reporters outside the courtroom after the state coroner ruled the incident a \u201croad traffic-related accident\u201d at a coroner\u2019s inquiry on Oct 7.<\/p>\n
According to The Straits Times, the accident occurred at about 6.20am on Aug 15, 2024, at The Topiary, a condominium along Fernvale Lane in Sengkang.<\/p>\n
The girl, Nivya Rameshwar, was waiting to board a school bus when she was struck by another minibus within the condominium compound. She was taken to hospital but died from her injuries.<\/p>\n
High walls and bushes could have obstructed driver\u2019s view<\/h2>\n
During the Oct 7 hearing, the coroner noted that a wall near the accident site was more than 1.8m tall, while the bushes reached about 1.4m.<\/p>\n
These could have obstructed the driver\u2019s view, making it difficult for him to see pedestrians, the coroner said.<\/p>\n
Had the wall and bushes been lower, visibility for both drivers and pedestrians would have been much clearer.<\/p>\n
The driver, Phua Hak Heong, was arrested on the day of the accident, but has not been charged in court.<\/p>\n
[[nid:697496]]<\/p>\n
Girl\u2019s mother overcome with grief<\/h2>\n
Shin Min Daily News reported that Nivya\u2019s mother, Neela Kanagasundaram, was overcome with grief while speaking to reporters and had to be helped by family members to sit down.<\/p>\n
She had attended the coroner\u2019s inquiry with a photograph of herself and her daughter. Nearly 20 relatives and friends were also present at the hearing.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media outside court afterwards, she choked back tears as she said it was now up to the authorities to decide what needs to be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor myself, every day, I cry… It\u2019s painful,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
To her, Nivya was a kind and loving child who never spoke ill of others. She was also a source of joy to everyone around her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever she walked into a room, it was as though she lit up the entire space,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Girl run over by minibus while waiting for school bus<\/h2>\n
During an earlier hearing in February 2025, Station Inspector (SI) Jeff Tan, a Traffic Police (TP) investigation officer, told the court what happened on the day of the incident.<\/p>\n
According to the domestic helper, Sivakumar Ilavarasi, she had taken Nivya downstairs that morning and asked the girl to wait near a gate while she crossed the road with her school bags.<\/p>\n
She told Nivya that she would return to carry her across the road after putting down the bags.<\/p>\n
The helper said she looked back while crossing the road and saw Nivya still standing where she had been told to wait.<\/p>\n
However, when she placed the bags down and looked back a second time, the girl was no longer there.<\/p>\n
After looking around, the helper was horrified to find Nivya lying face down on the ground, covered in blood.<\/p>\n
She ran to the girl and cried for help while cradling her. Two residents who heard the commotion quickly called the police.<\/p>\n
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Bus driver said he did not see girl<\/h2>\n
Nivya\u2019s father, Rameshwar Khirodhar, heard the screams and rushed downstairs to check on his daughter. Neela, who is a nurse, also hurried to the scene.<\/p>\n
The school bus driver involved in the accident, 68-year-old Phua, testified that it was still dark at the time.<\/p>\n
He said he had noticed the helper crossing the road and waited for her to make her way across before continuing to drive.<\/p>\n
However, he told the court that he did not see Nivya.<\/p>\n
The girl was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 7.32am that day. The cause of death was severe chest and abdominal trauma.<\/p>\n
School bus was travelling at just over 10kmh<\/h2>\n
The condominium\u2019s management had initially required school buses to pick up and drop off students at a common pickup point.<\/p>\n
However, the arrangement was changed after parents complained that the designated point was too far away, forcing their children to wake up five to 10 minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
The management subsequently allowed school buses to enter the condominium\u2019s internal roads to pick up and drop off students at individual blocks.<\/p>\n
According to Shin Min, the school bus involved in the accident was travelling at just over 10kmh at the time.<\/p>\n
Investigations found that the driver was not using his mobile phone when the accident occurred, and there were no records of incoming calls or messages at the time.<\/p>\n
The investigating officer said the driver was not subjected to a breathalyser test as there was no indication that he had consumed alcohol before driving.<\/p>\n
[[nid:697666]]<\/p>\n
This <\/em>article<\/u><\/em><\/a> was first published in <\/em>Stomp<\/u><\/em><\/a>. Permission required for reproduction.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The mother of a seven-year-old girl killed in a school bus accident at a Sengkang condominium in 2024 said she cries every day, remembering her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/92122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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