Four killed as vehicle falls into gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur
Shimla: Four people were killed and five sustained injuries when the vehicle they were travelling in rolled down a gorge on the Sangrah-Palar road in Sangrah subdivision of Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district early Wednesday, police said.
The accident happened late Tuesday night. The police said the vehicle lost control in the Gat Log area in the Renuka Assembly constituency. It veered off the road and fell into the gorge.
There were nine occupants in the car when the tragedy struck, the officials said.
The injured were admitted to Dr YS Parmar Medical College in Nahan town.
One of the survivors told the police that the vehicle was overcrowded and the driver probably lost control over the vehicle while negotiating a turn.
Local residents, hearing the sound of the accident late at night, began rescue operations and informed the police.
Upon receiving the information, a police team arrived at the accident scene and, with the help of villagers, pulled the injured out of the ditch and took them to a nearby hospital for first aid.
The rescue operation faced difficulties owing to the depth of the gorge and the inaccessible area.
An injured passenger said rescuers had a tough time in extracting the victims from the vehicle.
Most of the occupants of the vehicle were from Sirmaur district. The police have initiated an investigation into the accident.
The process of identifying the deceased and the injured is underway.
The exact cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained.
According to police records, rash driving, overloading, untrained drivers, mechanically unfit buses and poor roads have been among the factors for road accidents. Sirmaur district has earned the notoriety of being accident-prone. Police officers blamed buses belonging to private operators and their reckless, untrained drivers for most of the fatal accidents.