- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
TWENTY-SIX people were killed after a bus carrying pilgrims from Panna district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh fell into a deep gorge near Rikhavu khadd en route to the Yamunotri temple in Uttarkashi district of the Himalayan Indian state of Uttarakhand on Sunday (5). Besides the driver and the helper of the vehicle, there were 28 passengers on board.
Four injured people were also injured in the accident and were receiving treatment.
The death toll rose to 26 after one body was recovered late in the night, Uttarkashi District Disaster Management Officer Devendra Patwal said.
Pulling out the bodies and looking for survivors in the night was a challenge for the police and State Disaster Response Force personnel, officials in Uttarkashi said. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and his Uttarakhand counterpart Pushkar Singh Dhami, both from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which is also in power in the two states, visited the accident site.
Atleast 15 people lost their lives in Damta of Uttarkashi when a bus carrying 28 pilgrims met with an accident,6 people are critically injured.
I pray for those who lost their lives and wish speedy recovery to the injured. My thoughts with the familes in the hour of grief. pic.twitter.com/2gMSAcKZsi— Dilip Ghosh (@DilipGhoshBJP) June 5, 2022
Chouhan on Monday said Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh has accepted his request that the bodies of pilgrims killed in a bus accident in Uttarakhand be brought to Madhya Pradesh in the Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft.
The Madhya Pradesh state home department issued a list of 28 passengers from Panna who were travelling in the ill-fated bus. After reaching Uttarakhand, Chouhan met the injured persons and reviewed the arrangements for their treatment. Chouhan in a tweet on Monday (6) said, “Urged Defence Minister Rajnath Singh ji over phone this morning that the bodies of our brothers and sisters from Panna, who died in the bus accident in Uttarakhand, be brought to Madhya Pradesh with respect by the IAF aircraft. He accepted my request. I express my heartfelt gratitude to him.”
The post-mortem of the victims was conducted in the night, he said. The bodies were set to be brought to Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, by 10 am local time on Monday and will then be flown by IAF planes to Khajuraho (nearest airport from Panna) in Madhya Pradesh by 2 pm, the CM said in another tweet.
“Our vehicles stationed in Khajuraho will then immediately take the bodies of pilgrims to their village. We are making efforts that the bodies be brought to Madhya Pradesh with full respect and the funeral be held today itself,” he tweeted.
The Madhya Pradesh chief minister also announced on Sunday that Rupees 5 lakh (£5,127) will be given to the kin of each of the deceased and Rs 50,000 (£513) to the injured persons.
He also thanked Indian prime minister Narendra Modi for announcing an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh (£2,051) to the kin of those killed in the accident and Rs 50,000 (£513) to the injured.
(With PTI inputs)
