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The accident occurred in Almora district in the mountainous
state of Uttarakhand. The bus was carrying around 60 people, and
more than 20 have been injured, said Deepak Rawat, a senior
state government official.
Authorities said earlier they believed there were 42 passengers,
which was how many people the bus could accommodate.
Teams of rescue and relief workers were deployed to the site and
officials feared the death toll may rise further, especially as
seven passengers in hospital were in critical condition.
Television footage showed parts of the bus mangled and destroyed
as it lay overturned on a rocky slope, close to a stream.
Rescuers were seen working to pull out passengers and carrying
bodies on stretchers.
The state’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami earlier said
rescue teams were working to quickly evacuate the injured
passengers to nearby hospitals and that authorities have been
instructed to airlift those seriously hurt.
The state government has opened an investigation into the
accident, said Vineet Pal, another official in the state. He
added that preliminary information suggested that the
dilapidated bus skidded before tumbling down a 60 meter-
(200-foot-) -deep gorge.
A number of passengers managed to escape or were thrown out by
the impact, and then alerted authorities about the accident. Two
transport officials have been suspended for approving a bus that
was in poor condition, Pal said.
India has some of the highest road death rates in the world,
with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured
annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly
maintained roads and aging vehicles.
In July, at least 18 people died after a double-decker passenger
bus collided with a milk truck in Uttar Pradesh state. In May, a
bus carrying Hindu pilgrims skidded and rolled into a deep gorge
on a mountainous highway in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing
at least 21 people.
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