25 killed in bus crash and fire in western India

BHOPAL:

A tyre blowout caused a bus to lose control and crash into a road divider before bursting into flames, killing at least 25 people in western India, police told local media. Police officer Sunil Kadasne told a news agency that 33 people were on the bus when the crash occurred around 1:30am (20:00 GMT) on Saturday morning on a highway in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra state. Eight survivors were taken to a hospital, 25 killed in bus crash and fire in western India

The bus was travelling from Nagpur to Pune on Samruddhi Mahamarg expressway when it crashed and its fuel tank caught fire, reports said. The majority of deaths were caused due to burning, police said.

Twenty-five people were killed and eight were injured, Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said in a post on Twitter. Maharashtra state’s Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted separate tweets expressing sorrow, and said they would pay support to each victim’s family, amounting to 700,000 Indian rupees ($8,500).

“My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives. May the injured recover soon,” Modi wrote in a tweet.