At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus full of Hindu pilgrims falls into Himalayan gorge
SRINAGAR, India — A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to a shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir skidded off a highway bridge into a Himalayan gorge Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 55, police said.
The bus was en route to the town of Katra from Amritsar, a city in India’s northern state of Punjab, when it fell into the gorge near Jammu city, police said.
Police officer Chandan Kohli told reporters that the bus was overloaded. He said the dead were from India’s eastern Bihar state.
Residents and authorities rushed to the accident and launched a rescue operation. The injured have been hospitalized.
The Mata Vaishnav Devi shrine in Katra is highly revered by Hindus, and hundreds of thousands visit it every year.
India has some of the highest road fatality 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.
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