At least 36 people died in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand after the bus carrying them crashed into a ravine near the city of Almora. This was announced by a local government official. For now, “36 victims have been confirmed,” Deepak Rawat, a senior official in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, told the press, adding that “three seriously injured people were transported to hospital by helicopter.”
A human chain of volunteers lined up along the steep slopes and crossed a swollen river, helping to extract the injured from the remains of the bus. The bodies were taken out and placed on the back of a truck. The prime minister Narendra Modi offered his “deepest condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the unfortunate road accident”, offering compensation to the families of the victims, while the prime minister of Uttarakhand Pushkar, Singh Dhami, said he had ordered an investigation into the ‘accident.