Heavy casualties were feared as a bus carrying around 45-50 members of a marriage party fell into a gorge in the Bironkhal area of Uttarakhand’s Pauri district on Tuesday evening, the disaster control room here said.
The bus was on its way to a village in Bironkhal from Laldhang when it met with the accident near the Simri bend, it said.
The accident occurred at around 7.30 p.m. Rescue operations have been launched with the help of locals but the efforts of the rescuers are being hampered by darkness, it said.
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There is no arrangement of lights at the site of the accident and the villagers are struggling to rescue those stuck inside the bus with the help of the flashlights on their mobile phones, eyewitnesses said.
Officials have rushed to the site of the accident. Ambulances, lighting and life-saving equipment have also been rushed to the spot.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited the Disaster Management Authority office in Dehradun to assess the situation following the bus accident in Pauri.
There was no clarity on the number of casualties at the time of filing the report.
However, a villager named Rajkishore, who is helping in the rescue efforts, said the casualty figure could be very high.
