Shillong, June 16 : At least 30 people were killed and 11 injured when a bus they were travelling in skidded off the road and fell into a deep gorge near Sonapur in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya, police said on Wednesday.
The accident took place at about 9.45 pm on Tuesday. The bus was coming from Silchar to Guwahati in Assam, Meghalaya director general of police Rajiv Mehta said.
Eleven bodies have so far been retrieved from the accident site and BSF personnel along with local people were making efforts to recover the rest.
The injured were admitted to a hospital in Shillong.
The mishap happened near Sonapur Mandir, East Jaintia Hills, about 140 km southeast of Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya.
“Last night a bus carrying passengers from neighbouring state of Assam fell into a 300-feet deep gorge near Sonapur here,” said East Jaintia Hills district SP Spill Thamar from Khliehriat, the East Jaintia Hills district headquarter.
“Around 30 people are believed to be killed in the accident and rescue teams that were rushed to the spot this Wednesday morning evacuated eight people in injured condition,” he added.
Officials said the police rescue operation that was launched only on Wednesday morning suffered due to heavy rains as well as difficult terrain. When the operations were called off for the day at sunset on Wednesday, the police could recover only seven bodies.
“We will resume the operations early Thursday morning,” SP Thamar said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed deep pain and sorrow over the loss of lives in the accident.
“Deeply pained by the loss of lives caused by a bus mishap in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills District,” Modi wrote on Twitter. “My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased in this hour of grief.”
The ill-fated bus was on its way from neighbouring state of Assam’s Silchar to Guwahati city. The number of passengers in the bus at the time of accident was not known.
In 2012, 28 persons were killed when an Agartala-bound bus from Guwahati had fallen off the highway into a deep gorge near the same place in August.
Last year, 146,133 people were killed and 500,279 others injured in 501,423 road accidents across India, a latest report released by India’s ministry of road transport said. — NNN-AGENCIES