Muzaffarabad, April 13 2012: At least eight persons, including three women and two young children, died and 27 others sustained injuries in a road accident in the southern Sudhnoti district of Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK) on Friday, police said.
A Hajira bound passenger bus, coming from Sudhnoti, fell into a deep gorge at about 9:30 am as it was negotiating a small turn in the under-construction road near Gorah village, DSP Sudhnoti Naseem Mahmood said.
Quoting some passengers he said the bus went out of driver’s control due to some technical fault and nosedived into the gorge, more than 300 feet beneath the road.
Seven people died on the spot and another succumbed to his injuries on way to the hospital in Islamabad. Of the remaining 27 wounded persons, 16 were hospitalized in different hospitals of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, he said.
Mahmood said local residents and police had to face problems in accessing the wreckage of the ill-fated vehicle as they carried out the rescue operation which came to end at about 3 pm.
The deceased were identified as Prof Ashfaq Hussain, Ism Jan, Mehnaz Bibi and her son Ilyas, Areesha, Nazira Begum, Ishaq and Asif Aziz.
On Thursday, two persons died and nine others were injured in another road accident in district Kotli after a passenger bus coming from Lahore fell into a gorge on the outskirts of Kotli city.