NEWS: India
At least 25 dead as bus plunges into gorge in Pauli Garhwal province

At least 25 peo­ple have died after a bus plunged into a gorge in north­ern Indi­a’s Uttarak­hand state.

Offi­cials say at least 40 peo­ple were on board when the bus veered off the road and plunged into a gorge in the Pauli Garhw­al region on Tues­day night.

So far, 21 pas­sen­gers have been res­cued by night oper­a­tions led by the state’s dis­as­ter response headquarters.

Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi tweet­ed, “My thoughts are with the bereaved family.”

The acci­dent hap­pened when the bus was car­ry­ing a wed­ding pro­ces­sion from Lald­hang in Uttarak­hand to Bironkhal village.

The cause of the acci­dent was not imme­di­ate­ly known, but state offi­cials are investigating.

Senior police offi­cer Swatantra Kumar Singh told news agency ANI that the res­cue oper­a­tion con­tin­ued on Wednesday.

Footage from the scene showed the man­gled wreck­age of the bus near a steep incline as res­cuers helped retrieve survivors.

Uttark­hand Chief Min­is­ter Pushkar Singh Dami said all pos­si­ble aid was being pro­vid­ed to sup­port the res­cue efforts.

In India, road safe­ty is poor, and more than 100,000 peo­ple die each year due to poor dri­ving and acci­dents caused by bad roads.

Bus­es are a pop­u­lar mode of trans­porta­tion in India, espe­cial­ly in small towns. How­ev­er, oper­a­tors often ignore safe­ty rules and overcrowd.