Thaindian News

Shimla, Aug 14 (IANS) Twenty-four people were killed and 39 others injured when a privately-owned bus rolled down a gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s Chamba district Friday, officials said.
Deputy Commissioner (Chamba) Devesh Kumar told IANS on phone that the bus, bound for Chamba town, fell into a 200-foot gorge near Salooni village, 40 km from Chamba town, Friday evening.

Most of the injured have been admitted to the Chamba regional hospital.

The bus was overloaded and the driver probably lost control over the vehicle at a hairpin bend and fell into the gorge, Kumar said.

Eyewitnesses said the administration had a tough time in extracting the victims from the bus, though villagers started the rescue operations before the authorities could reach the spot.

Most of the dead were from Chamba district.

State Transport Minister Mohinder Singh said the government has ordered an inquiry into the accident.

Governor Prabha Rau, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and state Congress chief Vidya Stokes expressed grief over the incident.

The spot of the accident, about 475 km from the state capital, is one of the remotest places in the state.

Chamba district has earned the notoriety of being accident-prone. Nineteen people were killed in April when a private bus fell into a gorge. Six people were killed Thursday when a car fell into a 1,200-foot gorge.

Scarcity of buses and poor frequency of government-run buses in this remote district are blamed for overloading of public transport vehicles.

According to police records, rash driving, overloading, untrained drivers, mechanically unfit buses and poor roads have been among the factors that killed around 8,000 people in road accidents in the past 10 years in the state.

The number of accidental deaths was at an all-time high in 2007 when 979 people lost their lives in 2,955 accidents. Last year, 581 people were killed.

Police officers blamed buses belonging to private operators and their reckless, untrained drivers for most of the fatal accidents in the state.