At least 10 people have been killed and 55 more injured after a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to a shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir skidded off a highway bridge into a Himalayan gorge this morning. The bus was travelling Katra town from the northern state of Punjab’s Amritsar city when it fell into the gorge near Jammu city, police said.
Local police officer Chandan Kohli told reporters that the bus was overloaded.
He said the dead people were from India’s eastern Bihar state.
Residents and authorities rushed to the accident spot and launched a rescue operation.
The casualties have been taken to hospital.
The shrine of Vaishno Devi in Katra is highly revered by Hindus, with hundreds of thousands visit it every year.
India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured every year.
Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and ageing vehicles.
