9 children killed as bus falls into gorge in Uttrakhand

In a tragic incident, a bus carrying school students fell into a 70 m gorge in the Tehri Garhwal region of the hilly state of Uttarakhand on Tuesday morning. The accident took place when the bus fell into a gorge after it lost control while taking a turn killing nine school children while injuring eight others.

SDRF team has rushed to the spot to rescue the injured. The injured in the accident in Labgaon about 160km away from the state capital Dehradun were rushed to the district hospital by officials of the local administration and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF). Initially, the IG Garhwal Range Ajay Rautela said that eight children are dead but later another person succumbed to injury.

According to the officials, all the children who died are between the ages of nine to 13 and were the residents of Kangsali village and students of the same school.

According to a senior SDRF official Praveen Alok, “The incident happened around 7.30am but the SDRF team received the information from the district control room at around 9 am after which a team rushed to the spot for search and rescue operation. The local administration and police were already present there and said two of the children had died on the spot. Two children died on the spot while seven of them later succumbed to injuries in the hospital while undergoing treatment. The eight injured are in serious condition. All the nine deceased were aged 4-13.”

Meanwhile, Tehri Garhwal’s district magistrate V Shanmugam refused to confirm the number of the dead. He said, “The rescue operation is still ongoing. Some of them have been shifted to Baurari main hospital and a decision is being taken to airlift them to AIIMS Rishikesh for further treatment.”

In a separate incident, five passengers are dead, several feared trapped when a boulder fell on their bus at Lambagad slide zone on Badrinath Highway today in Uttarakhand. According to the officials, 11 people were travelling in the bus when the incident took place. Meanwhile, the police team has reached the spot and the rescue operation is underway.