Ten Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrims, most of them from Bihar, were died and 57 others injured on Tuesday when their bus fell into a ravine after hitting the railing of a bridge here on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, officials said. The death toll may rise as the director of the State Medical College Hospital, Shashi Soodan, said two of the admitted injured were critical.
Officials said the bus, which was on its way to Katra from Amritsar, met with an accident in the Jhajjar Kotli area. Katra is the base camp for pilgrims visiting the famous shrine in the Trikuta hills.
Jammu Superintendent of Police Chandan Kohli says” accident happened on the Jhajjar Kotli bridge. Ten people died. The rescue operation is almost ahead of the competition, Local residents, CRPF and police officers rushed to the spot and started a rescue operation”.
Fifty seven injured have been admitted to GMC Hospital in Jammu and two of them are critical. “Two people were brought dead to the hospital, while others died on the spot,” Director Soodan said.
How bus fall in the nallah bridge at Jajjar Kotli
A CRPF officer said 10 bodies were recovered. The bus came off the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway and went down the nallah bridge at Jajjar Kotli between 6:30 am and 7:00 am, officials said. They said most of the passengers were from Bihar’s Lakhisarai and were on a pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi for their child’s religious festival. They were members of an extended family.
Ravinder Panday, one of the passengers, said they felt something hit the bus. “It lost its balance and rolled down. The vehicle was on its way from Amritsar to Katra with people going on a pilgrimage to the cave shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi,” he said.
The scene of the accident looked grisly with bodies trapped under the broken remains of the bus. Describing the accident, witnesses said the bus was traveling in the left lane but swerved to the right after the driver lost control, hit the bridge railing and fell. The front wheels broke off and got stuck in the parapet of the bridge.
On the way to Katra, the vehicle with Uttar Pradesh registration plate (UP 81 CT 3537) was supposed to take a left turn almost two kilometers before the accident site, but according to the passengers, the driver seemed to have lost his direction and was probably heading towards the Udhampur-Srinagar side of the highway.
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