Eight persons were killed after a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) plunged over 1,000 feet into a gorge in Maharashtra's Raigad district, officials said on Monday.

The accident occurred in the Ambenali Ghat area on Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar road, located about 180 km from Mumbai, between 5 am and 6 am on Sunday, when the victims were on their way from Dapoli to Satara. The vehicle was found in the gorge on Monday morning, a senior police official said.

The victims, in the age group of 19 to 35, left from Harne in Dapoli at around 2 am on Sunday in the SUV. When they did not reach Satara, their relatives launched a search in the afternoon and later approached the police.

During the investigation, the victims’ last location was traced through a mobile tower near Poladpur. While searching in the Ambenali Ghat section, the police spotted the SUV in the deep gorge on Monday morning, the official said.

The police suspect that the accident occurred after the driver lost control of the vehicle in the ghat area, following which it plunged into the gorge, he said.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed grief over the death of eight persons and said rescue operations were being carried out on a war footing.

The eight friends were on a trip when their vehicle plunged nearly 1,500 feet into a gorge in the hilly stretch, he said in a statement.

The district administration launched immediate rescue and relief operations and formed five teams of seven members each to retrieve the bodies, the CM informed.

Three bodies had been recovered so far, while efforts were underway to retrieve the remaining bodies with the help of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and voluntary rescue teams, he said.

One of the deceased was from Ratnagiri district, while the seven others belonged to Satara district, Fadnavis said.

"This is an extremely tragic incident. I pay heartfelt tributes to the deceased and share the grief of their families," the chief minister said.

The Raigad and Satara police were coordinating during the rescue operation, he added.

The victims have been identified as Ritesh Lokhande (22), Suhas Lokhande (20), Utkarsh Shingte (21), Nikhil Shingte (25), Mahesh Pawar (25), Aditya Salunkhe (21), Rajesh Katkar (35), all the residents of Satara, and Ansh Chavan (19), belonging to Ratnagiri, according to police.