At least 18 people were killed in eastern India on Tuesday following a horrific road accident. A bus transporting Hindu pilgrims collided with a truck carrying cooking gas cylinders, officials reported. Visuals from the accident site in Jharkhand state showed the severely damaged wreckage of the bus, with its rear section almost entirely consumed by fire.
Local lawmaker Nishikant Dubey confirmed that the pilgrims were en route to a Hindu shrine to observe the sacred month of Shravan, which coincides with the onset of the monsoons in the subcontinent. “18 devotees lost their lives due to a bus and truck accident,” Dubey announced on social media. The pilgrims were carrying holy water from the Ganges River, intended as offerings to the Hindu deity Lord Shiva.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his “deepest condolences to the families of the devotees who lost their lives.” His office conveyed on social media that “The road accident in Jharkhand’s Deoghar is extremely tragic.”
Official data indicates that tens of thousands of people die in road accidents across India annually. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari informed parliament that over 172,000 deaths resulted from road crashes in 2023. In a separate incident last November, a bus plunged into a deep Himalayan ravine in the northern state of Uttarakhand, claiming the lives of at least 36 passengers and injuring several others.
