India bus crash kills 17 in Kashmir

BBC News

New Delhi, 20 May 2014: At least 17 people have been killed after the bus they were travelling in plunged off a mountain road in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.

 

Thirty others were injured when the bus fell into a gorge from a road connecting the cities of Jammu and Srinagar.

 

The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

 

Bus crashes are common in India and often caused by poorly maintained vehicles, overloading and bad driving.

 

Tuesday’s incident happened near Ramban, a town nearly 200km (125 miles) south of Srinagar, police said.

 

 

The bus was carrying tourists, students and migrant workers.

 

The dead include six women and a group of students who were on their way for an examination being held by the Indian army in Kashmir.

 

"The cause of the accident is being ascertained. Witnesses have said that the driver was sleepy," police official Muneer Khan told the BBC.

 

The Press Trust of India says some injured passengers told the police that the driver was asked to "break the journey and rest for a while but he decided to keep going".

 

Nearly 140,000 people died in road accidents in India in 2012, according to the government’s National Crime Records Bureau.