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A passenger bus left a mountain road on Sunday and fell into a ravine north of India killing at least 48 people, according to authorities.
The bus fell into a ravine 213 meters deep in the foothills of the Himalayas, said Chief Minister Uttarakhand Trivendra Rawat. He said that about ten people were already hospitalized.
The rescuers recovered 48 bodies at the scene of the accident, said police officer Manoj Kumar.
"People were piled up like sardines," said another policeman, Jagat Ram Joshi, who added that at least seven of the injured were very serious.
A few hours earlier, rescue and recovery efforts were hampered by bad weather, police chief Sanjay Gunjiyal said.
The authorities claimed that the 28-seater bus carried about 60 people.
The exact cause of the accident is not known for the moment, but Gunjiyal said that bad weather could have made the bus go out of the way.
"It has been raining (in the area) since the morning, two days ago there was an avalanche in this region," he said. Residents were the first to arrive at the scene of the incident and help the victims, he added.
Gunjiya said that the terrain was inhospitable and that there was bad communications.
India has the world's deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed each year. Most accidents are attributed to careless driving and the precariousness of roads and vehicles.
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