At least 25 killed in bus crash in India

NEW DELHI: At least 25 people were killed after a bus carrying wedding guests crossed the road and fell into a deep gorge in northern India, police said on Wednesday. The vehicle was travelling along a treacherous mountain highway in Uttarakhand state when it careened over an edge and plunged at least 500 m with around 45 people on board.

Twenty people have been rescued, top police official Ashok Kumar told AFP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all possible assistance would be given to the survivors.

In this tragic hour, my thoughts are with the families of the bereaved, he tweeted on Wednesday.

In Uttarakhand, fatal road accidents are common in the state of Uttarakhand, which is part of the Indian Himalayas and is home to numerous religious pilgrimage sites.

Nearly two dozen people were killed in June when their bus plunged into a gorge while en route to a shrine to the Hindu deity Yamuna, north of the state capital Dehradun.

India has only one percent of the world's vehicles, but it accounts for 11 per cent of the global road death toll, according to a World Bank report released last year.

According to the report, 150,000 car crash deaths in India each year, or one person every four minutes.

Road crashes cost the Indian economy around US $75 billion each year, with medical expenses and loss of income driving many accident survivors into poverty.