At least 29 people were killed and nine others injured after a passenger night service bus skidded and fell into a deep gorge in East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya on Tuesday night. The place of occurrence is on the Assam-Meghalaya border.
East Jaintia Hills Superintendent of Police, Spill Thamar said that the police have rescued nine injured passengers of the bus since Wednesday morning. “We have also retrieved seven bodies so far,” the Sp said adding that rescue operation will start tomorrow morning again.
“The bus was on its way from Silchar in Assam’s Barak Valley to Guwahati. The accident took place around 10 pm
yesterday night around Sonapur area. The bus was carrying 38 passengers,” he said adding that due to rain there was low visibility on the stretch yesterday night, which perhaps led to the tragedy.
“The rescue workers and the villagers went down to the gorge with great difficulties to retrieve the bodies. Some of the rescue workers also got injured during the operation. The nine injured people have been shifted to a local hospital,” he said adding that the condition of some of the injured were stated to be critical.
It may be mentioned here that the Sonapur area is known for frequent landslide and several accidents had taken place on the stretch in the past. On January this year, a bus fell on deep gorge on the stretch leading to killing of eleven passengers.