GILGIT (AFP) – A bus carrying guests home from a wedding plunged into a river in northern Pakistan killing at least 14 people, officials said yesterday, with the bride so far the only known survivor.
“There were 25 people on the bus and so far 14 bodies have been recovered while 10 are still missing,” said a rescue official in Gilgit-Baltistan Wazir Asad Ali. “The bride is out of danger and she is being treated in a Gilgit hospital,” Ali added.
A senior police official from the area Naik Alam told AFP the driver appeared to have been speeding when he lost control at a curve.
The groom’s family had travelled from Punjab, more than 500 kilometres away, for the wedding and were returning home when the accident happened. Road accidents with high fatalities are common in Pakistan, where safety measures are lax, driver training is poor, and transport infrastructure is often decrepit.
In Balochistan in August, 12 men died when their bus crashed into a ravine on the Makran Coastal Highway.
In another accident that month, 24 people on board a bus were killed when it plunged into a ravine near the town of Azad Pattan on the border near Punjab province.
