A lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army was among two soldiers killed when their vehicle collapsed under the weight of a massive falling boulder in Ladakh on Wednesday.

The army said Lieutenant Colonel Bhanu Pratap Singh and Lance Dafadar Daljeet Singh were killed in the line of duty “when a boulder from a cliff fell on one of the vehicles of a military convoy in Ladakh”. Three other officers suffered injuries.

This is the second major accident in Ladakh involving soldiers this year. In May, seven soldiers lost their lives and 19 more were injured when their vehicle skidded off the road and fell into the Shyok river.

Officials said on Wednesday that the lieutenant colonel and the jawan died on the spot. Two major-rank officers and a captain were seriously injured, they said.

The Ladakh-based Fire and Fury Corps paid tributes to its men and said they had made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.

Officials said the vehicle was hit by the boulder when an army convoy was moving from Durbuk to Chongtash in Ladakh in the morning. Pictures of the vehicle showed the boulder hitting its front, where the driver and lieutenant colonel were seated.

The injured have been shifted to the army hospital in Leh.

Separately, a bus hired by the Indo-Tibetan Border Force skidded off the road and plunged into the Sindh stream in Ganderbal district of Kashmir, leaving the driver injured. There were no jawans in the bus at the time of the accident.