At least 16 people lost their lives and around over 30 others were injured after a bus carrying Amarnath Yatra pilgrims fell into a gorge in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban district on Sunday, officials said. The bus carrying the pilgrims skidded off the Jammu-Srinagar national highway, turned turtle and rolled down into a deep nullah at Nachlana belt of Ramban late this afternoon, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Ramban, Mohan Lal said.
The SSP initially said that 11 persons were killed, a figure later updated to 16. 30 to 35 were injured, many of them critical, in the accident, he said.
The officer said rescue operation was underway.
Earlier in the day, a 65-year-old pilgrim from Maharashtra died at the Baltal based camp of Amarnath yatra in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, raising the death toll in the ongoing pilgrimage to 20, police said, according to ANI.
The incident comes on the footnote of the Anantnag terror attack where seven Yatra pilgrims including six women, one man were killed and 19 others were left injured after militants attacked an unescorted bus from Gujarat at Khanabal, Anantnag district on the Srinagar-Jammu highway on Monday evening.
