A private bus plunged into a 500-feet deep gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district on Friday afternoon, killing 12 people and injuring more than 35 others, officials said.
The accident took place near Haripurdhar village, around 95 kilometres from the district headquarters at Nahan, when the bus travelling from Shimla to Kupvi via Rajgarh veered off the road and fell into the gorge, landing upside down.
The private bus had a seating capacity of 39 and was reportedly overloaded. Rescue efforts began soon after the crash, with local residents reaching the spot even before emergency teams arrived.
Sangrah Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) Sunil Kayath, who is present at the site, told PTI that the rescue operation is going on “war footing” and that the injured are being rushed to nearby hospitals in Sangrah and Dadahu.
Chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu expressed grief over the incident and, in a statement issued in Nahan, directed district authorities to provide all possible assistance to the families of those killed and to ensure the best medical care for the injured.
Condolences also poured in from across the political spectrum.
BJP national president and Union health minister J. P. Nadda, Leader of the Opposition in the Himachal Assembly Jai Ram Thakur, state BJP chief Rajiv Bindal, Shimla BJP MP Suresh Kashyap, and deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri expressed grief over the tragedy.
Industry minister and local MLA from the Shallai assembly segment, Harshwardhan Chauhan, said the district administration has been put on alert and that medical teams and doctors at Dadahu, Sangrah and Nahan hospitals are prepared to handle the emergency.
He said the cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained and expressed condolences over the incident. According to locals present at the site, frost accumulation on the road may have caused the bus to skid, leading the driver to lose control.
Visuals circulating on social media show residents forming human chains and assisting in pulling injured passengers out of the wreckage, as officials from the district administration and police continued rescue work.
Balbir Chauhan, a resident of Haripurdhar and a member of the BJP state working committee, said the locals had done “remarkable work” in rescuing passengers from the deep gorge despite difficult conditions.