Picture shows the ill-fated bus after the accident — Collected photo NEW DELHI, Oct 05 (BBC/AP): At least 25 people have died after a bus plunged into a gorge in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Officials said at least 40 were on board when the bus veered off the road and fell into a ravine in Pauri Garhwal district on Tuesday night.
So far, 21 passengers have been rescued following an overnight operation led by the state's disaster response force.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that his "thoughts are with the bereaved families".
The bus was carrying a wedding procession from Laldhang to Bironkhal village in Uttarakhand when the accident happened.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but state authorities said they were investigating the incident.
Senior police official Swatantra Kumar Singh told ANI news agency that a rescue operation was still under way on Wednesday.
Pictures from the scene showed the mangled remains of the bus lying near a steep hill as rescue personnel helped pull out the survivors.
Uttarkhand's Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that all possible help was being provided to the rescue teams to aid their efforts.
Road safety is notoriously bad in India, with more than 100,000 dying each year in crashes due to poor driving and dilapidated roads.
Buses are a popular mode of transport in India, especially in smaller towns. But operators often flout safety rules and pack them beyond their capacity.
At least 10 trainee mountaineers died Tuesday after being swept away by an avalanche in the Himalayas in northern India, media reports said, as rescuers searched for 11 others missing.
A group of 29 people was hit by an avalanche on a mountain peak located in the Gangotri range of the Garhwal Himalayas on Tuesday morning, said Uttarakhand state police chief Ashok Kumar. He said rescuers pulled eight survivors from the snow and took them to a local hospital for treatment.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported 10 had died.
All the missing were undergoing training at a mountaineering institute but far from the avalanche site, Kumar said.
Uttarakhand state's top elected official, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said the National Disaster Response Force and the Indian army deployed teams to help with rescue efforts. The Indian air force deployed two helicopters to search for the missing.
"It has happened for the first time in the history of Indian mountaineering that such a large group of trainee mountaineers has been killed in an avalanche," said Amit Chowdhary, an official at the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation and a former Indian air force officer.
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