At least 48 people have died on Sunday after an overcrowded bus plunged off a mountain road into a gorge in northern India.
Chief minister of Uttarakhand state, Trivendra Rawat, said the bus fell into a gorge 200 metres deep in the Himalayan foothills.
According to police official Manoj Kumar, 48 bodies have been recovered by the rescuers. “People were packed like sardines,” said another police officer, Jagat Ram Joshi. He said at least seven of the injured were in a critical condition.
About 60 commuters were being carried by the 28-seater bus, police said. The cause of the crash is not known but Mr Gunjiyal said bad weather could have led the bus to skid off the road.
He said “It is raining since morning. Two days back there was a landslide in that area,”. He added that local residents were the people who reached the site first and helped the victims.
India has the world’s deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed each year. The cause of the most accidents are reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and old vehicles.
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