Two buses roll down into gorge, seven dead, over 50 injured

Shimla, May 9: Two buses plunged into gorge in separate accidents in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district on May 9, killing seven passengers and injuring over 50.

All the five occupants of an HRTC bus were killed when it plunged into a 500-ft deep gorge near Tattapani, 85-km from here, Superintendent of Police (Mandi) Abhishaik Dullar said today. The ill-fated Himachal Road Transport Corporation bus was on its way from Roddidhar to Tatapani when the accident took place.

The dead included the driver and conductor of the bus, the SP added. Most of the passengers had disembarked from the bus a kilometre ahead of the accident site.

In another incident, two persons were killed and over 50 injured, six of them seriously injured, when a packed private bus rolled down into a ravine at Kuchali Nalah this morning.

Some passengers were sitting on the roof of the bus when the accident took place, eye-witnesses said. The private bus was on its way from Mandi to Kulthani. The seriously injured were admitted to hospital, police said.

PTI